


Recalling Dreams

by AnnaOkegom



Series: Sean's Story [3]
Category: SU RP OCs
Genre: Angst, Crying, Dreams, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Psychological Trauma, it starts off normal but then gets angsty and dark, looots of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:07:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 37,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24001837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaOkegom/pseuds/AnnaOkegom
Summary: Now 16 years old, Sean's life is stable and everything seems to be normal.But after three years, he begins to have peculiar dreams once again.Sean is determined to finally understand the real meaning through these memories, and during this search, he'll discover many hidden secrets he could never imagine.
Series: Sean's Story [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1644727
Comments: 15
Kudos: 3





	1. Awake

**Author's Note:**

> Finally it's here!!! This is where the real angst and dark stuff start appearing.   
> I'm really excited to write out some parts of this... spoilers I'm not revealing ;) You have to be patient and wait for it!

_Sometimes he just couldn't shake off that feeling of wanting to jump out in space._

_It was something unexplainable, illogical, even; but looking at that dark, starry immensity felt like a calling to the depths of his soul. And if he did, what would happen? Would he just keep floating around for the longest time, until something happened? Would he be able to find himself out there?_

_He no longer cared about the stares everyone was passing gave him, and just kept staring out through the window, his fingers gently touching its glass, tempted._

_"I think we need to go," a small voice spoke from his side, bringing him back to the reality he lived in._

_"Oh," he exclaimed and turned to the side. "You're right. I just... zoned out a little."_

* * *

Sean's eyes fluttered open as the boy unwillingly let a yelp escape from his mouth as his body jerked up. During the first moments, he just stayed like that, sat on his bed and looking around, trying to understand what has just happened and why was there sweat on his hands when the room was by no means hot. Then, slowly but steady, the memories started coming back to him.

"What's wrong, Sean? What happened?" a voice called, and Sean turned to its direction to see Marine standing by his bed with a glimpse of worry on her gaze.

"I... h-had a dream," Sean said at first before regulating his breathing again. "And I was... seeing through other eyes. It... it must have been my Mom. T-those dreams..."

"Wait, you mean... those m-memories y-you were seeing in your d-dreams?" Marine stammered, her expression going from slightly suspicious to worried as soon as she processed the words. Either to stay closer to him or because she was too disturbed to stand up, she sat on the bed. "But I thought these were over! The last time you had those was..."

"During that expedition... t-three years ago." Sean completed, letting his hands fall over his lap covered by the bed sheets.

For minutes, the two of them made no noise, thoughts racing through both of their minds. Drowning in panic, Marine had her finger over her mouth and her head hung; anything that had to do with Sean always interested her, especially if it was something bad, so she could fix it and let the boy keep on living with comfort and happiness. But if it was something that was out of her reach, what could she possibly do? She couldn't stand to know he was in such a situation and just watch without doing anything; just the mere thought of it made her want to cry. But she didn't want to start being that hysterical in front of him. Marine wanted to see some hope, to be able to soothe him, as impossible as it was.

Meanwhile Sean was more puzzled than concerned. Those dreams had interested him since the first time they showed up, and even after realizing what they truly were, they still felt as mysterious as they were on the start. Sean didn't know if he could somehow control them, and if he did, how to do so; there was always the chance it was a new power manifesting itself. The boy was a puzzle himself, distinct to both humans and Gems despite being the two, so it wouldn't be too far-fetched for him to have a power unlike any of the species. And if it was a new power, there was always the chance it was linked to his emotions like the others.

"What do we do?" Sean finally asked.

"I... don't know," Marine replied with hesitation, lifting her head to look at him.

"I-it's fine. It's probably... n-not a really big deal." he started, trying to sound as convincing as he could to Marine and to himself. "I mean... I'm seeing her memories, n-nothing more. Y-you know how I always wanted to know more about her... now I'll able to do that first-hand!" He chuckled in the end.

"Sean, this is no laughing matter... this is serious. What if this could affect your body or mind somehow? This isn't supposed to happen. You're not supposed to be seeing those things! And I don't know how to make you feel better!"

"It's okay, Marine! I mean... I-I'm not exactly normal, you know that. Maybe... this _is_ supposed to happen. And the sooner we accept it, the better!" he proposed, spreading his arms to give his argument more credibility. It didn't work.

"Well, whether it's natural or not, it's worrying... and we need to find a way to stop it. I'd rather not bring this to the Commanders yet, if we could solve it by ourselves... but if we need to, we will do that, Sean." Marine said, and even though her demeanor was more calm, Sean knew her well enough to be sure she wasn't actually feeling this way.

Sean just nodded. He didn't think it would actually get severe, and if it did, he could always try mastering it, assuming the possibility of it being another power of his being true. He did remember hearing about controlling dreams and lucid dreams at some point when he was younger; it was not quite the same thing, but maybe he could try that. But if the dreams were only memories, was there really a way to change memories?

"Ugh, thinking about this is hurting my brain..." Sean grunted, passing his hand through his hair.

"T-then don't do it! I don't want your brain to be even more hurt than it already must be!" Marine ordered with a screech, before rising from the bed. "Just... it's time for your breakfast. Eating will make you feel better."

"Y-yeah, I guess I am feeling hungry... and then after that, I have training, right?" Sean got up from his bed and stared down at the messy bed sheets and blankets before starting to tidy everything up.

"Yes, that's right. If you want, I can take you there to make sure you'll be fine..." Marine turned around with a tray of food over her hands, then placed it on the table and rushed to Sean's side while he made his bed. "Oh, Sean, you don't need to... let me do it."

"It's okay, Marine... I can do it!" he reassured her with a smile and quickly finished making his bed. "Okay, I'll get dressed now..."

Marine instantly understood what he meant by that and nodded before walking away, maintaining her back facing him. Sean looked down at the set of clothes he'd be wearing today, which, not by coincidence, looked exactly like the ones he had worn the previous day, and the one before that, and all the other days since he was old enough to wear actual clothes. He replaced his pajamas with the same old short-sleeved gray shirt that had a thick dark gray stripe on the middle, the gray pants and the _also_ gray sneakers.

"I'm ready!" Sean announced as he made his way to the table and sat down in one of the chairs, with Marine also coming to sit down on the other side right in front of him. "Wow, three toasts, an apple and orange juice! This looks great! Thank you!"

"You're welcome, Sean. You know how we're always careful to get whatever you'd like the most... and that includes me, obviously." she replied with her elbow on the table and her hand on her cheek. "You're... special, Sean. That's why I want to make sure you're always fine. I don't want you to be feeling bad in any way."

"Yeah... I understand. I also feel the same about you, and Olive, and my Dad... I love all of you. And I also know you care about me, so you don't have to worry about me getting hurt!" Sean declared while giving her a thumbs up. "I mean, I guess either way I'd have to try keeping myself from getting hurt... I'm 16 now, right? I guess I need to learn how to take care of myself."

Those last words seemed to really disturb Marine, as she immediately reached for his hands from across the table and held them on her own.

"Oh, Sean! Even if you're older now... please, don't ever change! You're such a good kid, Sean... I've read about human teenagers on the past, and some of the results were quite... worrisome." she said and glanced to the same with a blush. "Please. Promise me you'll never be a delinquent."

"I promise you I won't! I don't know exactly what you saw, but... I wouldn't ever so something bad!" Sean took a bite of one of the toasts and swallowed it after chewing. "When I said I'm 16 now, I didn't mean to say I'd change! I don't think I changed much over the years... but I think I need to be more responsible now."

"Sure, but... don't overthink it, alright? Remember I'm here to help you with anything personal, and Olive is also here to keep you safe." Marine assured him, and Sean nodded as he drank a bit of his juice.

Minutes later, when Sean finished eating his breakfast, he rose from his chair and so did Marine at the same time by impulse. 

"So, are you coming with me to the training room?"

"I would feel calmer this way. I mean, what if something happens to you on your way there? What if you start dreaming again or hallucinating and pass out? I can't take that risk, I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if you got hurt because I was careless!" Marine rambled while making her way towards Sean and putting her hand on his shoulder.

After the two exited the room, Marine refrained from touching Sean to only follow him right by his side, staying behind a little. Naturally, on their way, most if not all the Gems passing by stared at Sean, some even whispering to whoever was near them while failing to be discreet and visibly pointing at him. Sean didn't mind though, and whenever his eyes would meet with a Gem's, he would be sure to smile, and if they didn't break eye contact, he would even wave and say hello only to receive no answer.

Sean was perfectly aware that he was different from them, and accepted the fact without complications. It was only natural that they would be curious about him, and he was used to receiving weird gazes and even catching Gems gossiping about him; but he couldn't help but notice that he had been getting even more attention than usual whenever he went out these days, and he soon figured the reason.

Differently from Gems, humans actually grew up during their lifetime and suffered many changes. And it so happened that at some point after he turned 15 and a half and his 16th birthday, Sean went through both a growing spurt and a voice change. When this happened, Sean was taken for testing to make sure everything was normal on his body, and it was determined that while he was slightly shorter than most human boys his age (he wasn't sure how they had gotten that information), he was perfectly healthy. And while his voice had become a little deeper, it still carried the same friendly and warm, and sometimes even childish tone he always had.

"I guess I became quite popular around here lately!" Sean told Marine with a laugh.

"You're right, it seems so," Marine replied simply, keeping an eye on the Gems who stared for too long and rushing Sean to walk faster whenever this happened. "Oh, this already happened a few years before, when you were younger."

"Really? I must've been really young, because I can't remember that at all! How was it?"

Marine let out a sigh and shook her head after placing her hand on her forehead. Even though the memories seemed to induce annoyance in her, when she started speaking again, Sean could see a small smile threatening to show.

"You know how you used to never get out when you were younger... partly because of this. The Commanders didn't want to place you in danger, and some Gems can be such brutes sometimes, especially with things they don't understand." she began, with Sean paying attention to every word. "But you did have periodical check-ups and training to attend to, so I had to take you out. Gems would stop me at every step I took and surround me just so they could take a closer look on you... can you imagine it? After you were born, you were the only subject going around this ship and even the others!"

"O-okay, I knew I was popular, but... t-that popular? Wow!" Sean exclaimed as he started to blush and smile. "Ad what did they think of me?"

"They thought you were peculiar. Interesting, unique... they used many adjectives to refer to you. Oh, I'll never forget when that Quartz guard started stomping towards us and I froze in fear, because after all, you were just a baby... but then all she did was squeeze your cheeks and mumble 'fleshy'. I was so scared at the time, but now I have to admit it's quite funny!"

Hearing that, Sean couldn't even think about holding back his laughter; it just came all out, in the middle of the hallways, eliciting even more weird looks directed at him and Marine. Right after he realized what he was doing, Sean shut his mouth, its corners still lifted and shaky as he wiped the tears out of his eyes.

"That sounds incredible! I wish I had been there to see it! I mean, I was, but... I wish I remembered that!" Sean touched one of his cheeks with his hand and pulled it a little before letting go. "She wasn't exaggerating... I think it is pretty fleshy!"

"Sean, stop, you're going to make me laugh in front of all these stern, high-ranking Gems..." Marine whispered between giggles as she turned her face away, trying to hide her smile.

"Heeey, look at me! I'm _fleshy_! Nobody's as fleshy as me!"

"O-oh my stars, Sean, s-stop!" she snickered, using a hand to push him away.

"Which sounds better? Fleshy McCarthy or Sean McFleshy?"

This turned out to be the breaking point for Marine, and after that she finally cracked up and started laughing without any form of restraints; seeing her laughing, summed up with the entire humor of it all, Sean also stopped holding himself back and let out all his laughter. The two of them continued walking down the hallways like that, until they finally reached the room.

"Thank the stars we're here!" Marine cheered when they finally arrived, practically slamming her hand onto the detector and almost throwing herself against the door to open it.

Once again Sean wiped away the tears on the corners of his eyes and stepped inside, taking a look around the familiar, large yet almost empty room. He rubbed his stomach; it hurt after laughing so much.

"Look who we have here... I was starting to think you were going to ditch the class!" a voice announced from the middle of the room, and turning towards it, Sean saw Olive standing there with a good-natured smile and a hand on one of her hips.

"Olive!" Sean yelped and ran towards her, then jumped and embraced her on a hug. "Sorry we were late! Can you forgive me?"

"Oh, I don't know if I can... you know, this really hurt my feelings, Sean." Olive joked, dramatically feigning pain before putting Sean back on the ground and ruffling his hair.

Near them, Marine stepped forwards and brought the attention of both Sean and Olive to her. She now had her hands in front of her chest, interlaced, and looked down at them with a neutral expression that could easily turned into an apprehensive one.

"So Sean started having _those_ dreams again." she said bluntly, bringing her hands down but never letting them separate from each other, and her head still hung.

"You mean... the memories with Azurite?" Olive repeated.

"Yeah." Sean said. "But this one was actually quite short and uneventful... honestly, I think I should be fine! Like... maybe this is a power I have. All I need to do is train to be able to control it!"

"Sean, I'm sorry, but... I don't think I know about this enough to train you to control it." Olive said.

"I-it's fine. I think that I'm the only one who can understand and control this... I know I can do it. Just give me some time, and you'll see that I'll solve this!"

Marine and Olive glanced at each other before shrugging.

"If you say so... I hope everything ends well." Marine said in a whisper.

"Alright, so... ready to begin training, Sean?" Olive suggested, grinning.

"I'm always ready! I just have to be careful not to hurt myself... because after all, I'm so _fleshy_."

"O-oh, Sean, n-not again!" Marine restarted her laughing fit.

"Oh, wait, she told you that story?!" Olive exclaimed as she started to laugh herself. "When it happened and she came to tell me about it, I swear I almost dissipated my form from laughing so hard!"

"It's true, though! Look at how fleshy I am!"

"Sean, you're too much!"

"Too much? You mean too fleshy, right?"

Minutes passed after the three could finally stop laughing and start the training.


	2. Exit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sean searches for advice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New chapter, yay! Things start getting a little dark here... there's also a bit of horror on the start, so it can be disturbing at first.

_Darkness._

_It was the only thing Sean could see. Around him, above him, even under him. When he crouched down and tried to feel the ground with his hand, nothing came, but his feet had to be standing over something or else he'd be falling on that dark pit forever; or perhaps he already was, but everything was of the same color and tone and he couldn't perceive it._

_"H-hello? Anyone there? I-I think I'm lost..." Sean called out, and the only response he got were the many echoes of his own sentence._

_He was alone. If he actually knew what was going on, staying there could actually be calming, but the mystery was just disturbing him now. Sean had no actual memories of getting there. Thinking about it, he actually didn't have any memories of anything; just what was going on?_

_Whatever it was, standing there wasn't going to help, so Sean started walking forwards. He couldn't see any change in environment nor hear the sound of his own footsteps, so he couldn't be sure if he was actually moving in a direction or if he was only stepping on the ground at the same place._

_After a while it seemed like he had finally found something. A figure standing there on the distance; Sean felt his heart pulsating faster to the point he could hear its sounds in his ears. Sean ran, ran and ran towards the figure, sometimes almost tripping; that place had changed his sense of space somehow, because at times it felt like the figure was moving away from him, only for it to resume its original position soon._

_When he got closer, Sean slowed down, both because he already felt tired from running so much and because he didn't want to scare whoever that was. He noticed that the figure was sitting down on the floor, back turned to him, and he sat down next to them. But taking a closer look almost made him let out a scream._

_Short, fluffy and wavy azure hair, pale blue skin. Her head was hung, hiding her face from him. She wore a crop top that left most of her back bare, with a ribbon on its top, and a long flowing skirt that touched the ground, hiding most of her feet. Sean's mind instantly recognized her._

_"M... Mom...?" he whispered shakily, realizing he was extending his hand to her, hesitant._

_She didn't stir. It was like she was a statue, like she was static just like in that painting. Slowly and softly, Sean touched her shoulder, and then moved his fingers to her hair; he could feel everything. It didn't give off the warmth he imagined it would be like, but he could still feel her. She was there._

_"It's... me. S-Sean... your s-son..." he said, trying to get her to do anything. "I-I mean, obviously you won't... r-recognize me. But... y-you must know who I a-am! Is... everything okay?..."_

_Sean placed his hand on her chin and cheek and gently pulled it towards him so he could see her face, and once again, he had to supress a screech of shock. He couldn't even see her eyes; her eyesockets were just empty, reflecting the darkness that loomed over the entire place they were in, and her mouth was ajar like she wanted to say something but couldn't. Sean couldn't help but flinch away, still with the blank stare turned to him._

_"W... w-what happened?! Are you o-okay? Y... y-your eyes, they're..."_

_He didn't like this, but he still found himself sitting closer to her and put both hands over her shoulders._

_"I-I don't understand w-what's going on, but... d-don't worry. I'll help you... I-I'll find a way!"_

_For the first time, she started moving. In a frail and slow way, her hand reached for Sean's chest, touching it as if she was looking for something, but her feeble efforts were keeping her from achieving anything. Confused, Sean tried to get closer and put his hands around her waist in the form of an awkward hug before nervously smiling to her._

_Her hand dropped from his chest to his navel area and began tugging at his shirt. Sean wasn't sure what she wanted, but lifted his shirt up a bit, revealing his gem, and she continued to touch it. Only then he noticed that her lips were moving ever so slightly, and when he put his ear closer to her mouth, he managed to hear what she was chanting._

_"I need it..."_

* * *

It was a dream, it was all a dream, it wasn't real...

No matter how many times Sean repeated the thought, it didn't comfort him. Marine pacing around the room in circles over and over again wasn't a comforting scene either, and to avoid seeing it, the boy just placed his elbows over his knees and his head between his hands, clutching his fluffy and wavy black hair.

"I-I think I feel b-better now," Sean stammered out in a not-so-successful attempt of making a calm voice. But he wasn't lying; he certianly did not feel good, but he didn't feel just as bad as when he woke up minutes ago. He was a little better.

"Well, I d-don't! How could I possibly do?!" Marine screamed to the room, lifting her hands before using them to seize her face. "I _knew_ this wasn't good the moment it started! There was no way this was going to end up fine, but I tried to pretend it would, just for you! And look what's happening now..."

Sean glanced at her, feeling a tingle of guilt, pulled his whole body back to the center of the bed and sat cross-legged there, hands on knees. This time, it had been different from the others; he actually felt like _himself_ that time. He knew he was Sean, not Azurite; she had even appeared on his dream! He was sure that had been just a regular nightmare, not one of the flashback memory dreams, or whatever they were going to start calling those.

"T-this time it was okay... i-it wasn't like the others. It was just a n-nightmare... I-I don't know why I let myself be so... a-affected by it..." Sean tried to say, but in that state, Marine wasn't going to think about it.

"It doesn't matter what it was! It's not... good for you! You know that!" The response made Sean close his mouth and go back to rocking his body back and forth, grasping his feet while trying to get rid of the eerie feeling.

Only seconds had passed before the door of Sean's room was slammed against the wall, the only thing keeping it from shattering on impact being its resistant material. The abrupt action made both Sean and Marine jump from where they were and jerk their heads towards the door, at the right moment to see Olive jump inside with a large grin on her face.

"Who's ready for a section of training?!" she shouted while pointing at Sean, who did his best to smile.

"Oh, please, read the room," Marine mumbled to herself.

Soon Olive realized the awkward atmosphere around and stopped smiling, instead going to sit next to Sean with concern. The boy still made an effort to seem happy, but his posture said otherwise.

"Hey, what happened? Why are you two so down?" she asked while rubbing Sean on the back.

"I-I had a little nightmare... i-it's not like the o-other dreams I had been h-having, but..."

"It still involved Azurite. And it's got him on this state... we can't let this go unnoticed. We have to do something!" Marine said and joined them. 

Even though no one said anything, they all knew what they were thinking: they had no idea what to do. Marine had already brought up the possibility of taking the issue to the Commanders and letting them take the lead, but it would be better if this possibility was avoided if there were other ways to solve the problem, because as members of the organization themselves, they were aware of the cold and ruthless reputation of the Elementals. Even if Sean was precious to them.

"I think I'll... go see my Dad." Sean said suddenly, surprising Marine and Olive.

"Sean, if you want to do that, it's fine... but please, don't try to run away from this conversation. We need to talk about this." Marine held his hands while speaking.

"I know... but I'm not trying to run away. Really." Sean gave them a small smile before getting up. "You guys don't need to go with me, it's alright. I'll be back later, bye!"

Without saying anything else, Sean got up and was about to leave when Marine said something else.

"Sean... if you're going out, please put on your normal clothes."

Sean looked down and blushed upon realizing he was still wearing his pajamas.

"O-oh! T-that's right, haha, I will!" 

After putting his regular clothes on, Sean said bye to the two again and left the room. His mind was way too full for him to even be able to greet whoever looked at him on the corridors, but at least he didn't offend any of them by doing that, as they didn't expect or need a greeting. 

His reverie made him realize that what he had just done was indeed a way to run away from that discussion. Sean knew he didn't want Marine and Olive to worry about him, even if what was happening really was as serious as they thought it was, so he just wanted to be able to fix it himself. And he also knew that the dream he had just had wasn't related to those memory dream sequences, but to his own mind. Had he been suppressing his concern about this problem too much, so it led his mind to use a nightmare to relieve the stress?

He wasn't even able of answering his own questions. All Sean could think about was the last part of the dream. What had happened right before he woke up. She, Azurite, his own _mother_ , was trying to pull his gem right off his body to take it for herself. What would even happen to him without his gem? To him, even the worst answer to that question was nowhere near as disturbing as the events of that nightmare.

Azurite was gone. Because of Sean. That was something he grew with, but not something he really "accepted". He was used to some Gems still referring to him as Azurite, especially on his younger years; the most memorable case was on his first mission three years ago with Tiger, which coincidentally was also when his dreams started. Nowadays this rarely happened anymore, and in the rare times it did, the Gems would cut themselves off before finishing the name. They were probably instructed to stop doing that, but that didn't mean they had stopped believing that.

It all gave him a headache.

"So, nimrod, are you going to do something or are you just going to stand there looking dead? Because if it's the latter, you can go do that anywhere else but near me." a voice spoke up in front of him, bringing Sean back to reality.

The boy blinked a few times and looked around, before finally setting his gaze on Ametrine. Oh, he had arrived.

"O-oh, Ametrine... s-sorry, I was just thinking. I'd like to--"

"Go inside? Yeah, it's all you ever do here. Not that you'd come here to do anything else... but I'd really rather if you didn't come _at all_." Ametrine complained before activating her levitation ability so she could be as tall as possible and maybe intimidate Sean, even if he was still taller. 

"So... can I come in, or not? Please?" Sean asked gently, scratching the back of his head. 

"Hm, it's not like I actually have the option to refuse you, is it? Just go inside and see your... Dad, or whatever you call it." she sighed before opening the door for him.

"Uh, thanks..." Sean said, even if the idea of Ametrine referring to his Dad or any human as "it" greatly disturbed him.

Sean came in through the door and it was immediately shut behind him, even hitting his back, which pushed him forwards and almost made him fall. There were trees and plants everywhere around him, and Sean started making his way to where everyone else would actually be. Soon he was there at the beach, and now surrounding him were humans.

They were all unique with their own physical appearance, and the only identical trait that all of them shared were their smiles. Large beams from ear to ear were printed on their faces, whether they were just lying down on the sand, swimming on the water or talking to each other. That was the life they knew and that made them happy. But was it really happiness if it was built without their consent? Most of them didn't know any better. Would they really want to stay like that if they knew there was much more to life? How many of them had been born, lived and died believing this was all life had to offer?

As his father had told him once, "ignorance is bliss". And thinking about it now, it was really unfair how these humans were basically being held hostage; Sean believed that they had the right to choose what they wanted to do with their lives. Even if he had never thought about it this way, it was probably why he wanted to go to Earth so bad himself, an instinct that was probably amplified by all the stories his Dad used to tell him about it.

Sean was brought back to reality by the feeling of something tapping on his shoulder, and turning around, he was met with Finn right in front of him.

"Dad!" Sean screamed in joy before hugging him.

"Hey there, kiddo... nice to see you again." Finn replied, embracing Sean back. "You're usually the one to spot me first, but it looks like I won this time! It wasn't hard, since you're the only one here who actually wears normal clothes..."

"Haha, looks like it! I... have some things to tell you. Let's go sit on the shore so I can tell you..."

The two of them walked over to the shore and sat down, with the water of the artificial sea almost ouching them. Normally Sean sat with his legs straight, but this time he hadn't planned on getting wet, so instead he hugedd hie legs, brining his knees closer to his body. 

"So, what did you want to tell me?" Finn asked, turning his head to his son.

Sean let out a sigh and just continued staring straight at the sea. How would he even be able to explain what was happening? No other kid had a life like his, probably, and even though it was all he had ever known, it was still like a foreign experience to him. If only Sean could have a normal life, he wouldn't be troubling everyone he cared about with his problems...

"Hey, Sean, are you okay? Sean?" his father called, putting his hand on Sean's shoulder.

"O-oh, sorry about that, D-Dad... I've been s-spacing out a lot recently..." Sean stuttered with an awkward laugh, trying to lighten the mood a little. "I just don't know how to tell you this... i-it's kinda hard."

"Hey, it's okay, kiddo. You know you can tell me anything, right? If this is a difficult topic for you to talk about, I can wait until you're ready... but you don't need to be afraid of telling it to me."

Sean nodded. He spent some minutes thinking to himself, and then after breathing in and out, decided it was finally the time to say everything.

"D... do you remember when I went to that mission three years ago?" Finn nodded. Sean continued. "And how... I kept getting those weird dreams where I was my Mom and all? W-well, yeah, I... I-I've started having them again."

"Again?! I thought they had stopped for good when you told me about them three years ago!"

"So did I, but... it d-doesn't seem like it anymore."

"For how long have you been having them again?" Finn held one of Sean's hands.

"I had one yesterday... a-and today I just had a nightmare, but it involved her too... I-I don't know what's happening anymore. I-I want to understand, b-but... I-I don't know how to control it. I don't know what to do, Dad..." Sean started, trying to hold back the tears he didn't even know where starting to sprout on his eyes. "I don't want to worry Marine and Olive, so I-I've been tried to be p-positive... b-but I just..."

He trailed off and swallowed in an attempt to keep himself from crying, also looking away so his father wouldn't see him on that state. Things weren't supposed to go that way; now, Finn would be worried, and Sean couldn't even stay with him constantly, so he'd be suffering all alone there! Guilt grew inside Sean's body.

"Kiddo... if you're worried or scared about this, you shouldn't just keep it inside. It's okay to talk about your feelings..." Finn reassured, getting closer to Sean and putting his hand on his shoulder, pulling him in a side hug. "Of course you don't need to tell anyone everything if you don't want to. But bottling up your emotions is just going to cause you more pain."

"B-but I... i-it's just really bad. I-I don't think you'd like me to t-tell you what I saw..."

Sean had seen his mother in anger and sadness outbreaks, things he never expected her to do. It was probably a stupid thing of him to try and make that mental image of her he had made; he had never known her, he would never know her or what she was like. So why bother trying to fill that empty space inside of him? 

And that nightmare from earlier wasn't real, but it had still damaged his view on her. Sean didn't feel any ill feelings towards her. He didn't hate her. He didn't hate anyone, much less her. Maybe she had made some mistakes, of course, and maybe she was the total opposite of what he had imagined her as, but Sean didn't think his mother was a bad person. 

Maybe _he_ was the bad person of the two of them.

"I think this is only happening because I've been thinking about her a lot lately..." Sean proposed. "After everything that happened with Amazonite, I mean... it's already been two years, but I just can't keep myself from thinking about it once in a while."

"That's completely understandable. I mean, you... you a-almost..." Finn's grip on Sean's shoulder loosened a bit as he stammered the last part before shaking his head. "The thing is, it was a traumatizing experience, especially considering your age. I wish I could have been there for you when it happened."

"It's fine, I know it wasn't your fault... and I don't blame Amazonite for it, either. None of us can imagine what she actually went through, and... m-maybe if it were us in her place, w-we'd have done the same. But... what I keep thinking about is that Mom did that to her. I-I don't hold it against her, b-but it wasn't something I'd expect her to do... n-not that I actually knew her..."

"I understand... I feel the same way, honestly. I almost didn't believe it when you told me. I guess that in the end, I didn't actually know every part of Azurite... just what she showed me." Finn concluded, placing both of his hands against the sand again. 

"Dad... I-I'm the last one who could know something about her, but... from what I saw... I believe that Mom showed you her best side. She cared about you a lot... she loved you a lot. I can be sure of that."

Hearing that, Finn smiled again and ruffled Sean's hair, making the boy hug him.

"Thanks a lot, kiddo... I appreciate it."

"You're welcome. Now, all I want to do is understand these dreams, and hopefully stop them."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't wait to reach the real dark parts--


	3. Proxy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sean has a great idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh, I don't know why but I feel like I took so long to update this! I've had a bad mental and writer's block lately that was keeping me from writing properly. The next one will also take some time to come out since I still need to outline the next chapters and think about some plot points!

_All he could feel was the hard wall against his back and his knees against his forehead. He was curled up, clenching his hands into fists not because of anger, but to keep himself from doing something he would regret in case the feeling came up. And it didn't take long for tears to start coming out of his eyes and rolling down his cheeks to fall on the floor._

_"Are you alright? Do you want me to do something to make you feel better?" his pearl's voice asked, and in his limited vision, he could still catch the glimpse of her crouching down in front of him._

_"About this... y-you don't need to w-worry," he replied before slowly lifting his head and resting his chin over his knees. Even so, he could still barely see her with the tears blurring his vision. "It's just... another one of these fits I keep having... y-you're familiar with t-that now, aren't you_ _?" He let out a mirthless laugh._

_The pearl just stared at him with an expression of worry on her face, probably unsure if she should reply, or laugh. He was right about the fact that she was familiar with those episodes of hysteria he had ever so often_ now _. When she had first been given to him, everything had been perfectly normal until the first outburst he had. It had been such a petty thing that he didn't even remember what was the reason; the only thing he did remember was the pure horror on his pearl's face as she stood still, watching as he screamed and cried and broke everything around his room._

_That image had burned itself into his mind to never leave._

_"Is there... any way I can help?" she dared to ask again._

_"Not really... you know how this things always go. I'm not fine now, but I'll be soon, and then this won't even matter until the next time it happens..." He started to wipe his tears and sighed. "I've just been thinking a lot lately... about Finn. He's really the best thing that ever happened to me... and it's just so unfair that we can't be together... I don't want to keep hiding and lying just to be happy, I don't think I should have to. But if the Commanders discovered about what we have, I'd never be able to see him ever again. It's just that... whenever I'm away from him, I feel like a part of me was taken away."_

_"If you want, I could be just like the human Finn to please you."_

_Hearing that and seeing just how serious she was made him burst into laughter on the spot, happy tears mixing with sad ones. The pearl did nothing but stare at him waiting for an order or at least clarification. After recovering, he wiped away the new tears that had appeared._

_"But that doesn't make sense at all!" he told her, still smiling. "It's not a matter of appearance or behavior... it's just about my feelings. And even if you could do that, I wouldn't want you to... both you and Finn are great, and I don't want any of you to stop existing just for me. It's not right." He came closer to her, then held her hands. "Trust me... you're important to me. I care about you for who you are. If I didn't, we wouldn't be friends, and I wouldn't be telling you everything..."_

_The pearl nodded in understanding._

_He embraced her._

* * *

Sean opened his eyes, slowly, as the memories came flooding back.

"Oh... my... gosh..." he muttered to himself. "I've figured it out! I've got it all figured out! It makes so much sense!"

The last words he had heard before waking up were still quite fresh on his mind. Telling her everything... how could he not have figured this out before? His mother's pearl was the one who spent the most time next to her, and apparently she told her _everything_. If there was anyone who Sean could ask about his mother, it had to be her; she knew more than anyone else, and she was his only hope now!

"What's wrong, Sean?! Another one of those terrible dreams?!" Marine screamed as she rushed to his side, voice dripping with concern.

"N-no, no, this time it was great! It was... enlightening!" Sean exclaimed, spreading his arms. "I had the best idea ever! C'mon, we need to find Olive right now!"

"But what about your clothes? What about your _breakfast_?! Sean, will you just tell me what's going on?"

"I will, I promise! But first we have to find Olive! Oh, and about the breakfast..."

Sean quickly ran to the table, put a piece of toast on his mouth and held the other two on both hands, before going towards the door and realizing he couldn't activate the detector since his hands were occupied. The sight made Marine frown, and she grudgingly put her own hand on it and opened the door. Stepping out first, Sean made sure to turn around and give her a smile as a "thank you", since his mouth was too full to speak.

By the time they arrived in the training room, Sean had already been able to finish all of his breakfast, and was now able to use his own hand to open the door. The first thing he saw as he came inside was Olive sparring against another Gem, with others sitting on a bench and waiting for their turn. As soon as she heard the door opening, Olive turned around and smirked upon seeing Sean.

"Oh, Sean, perfect timing! I didn't know you were coming to train today, but if you want, just come on!" she exclaimed, making a signal for him to come over. The Gem who was being trained frowned to him, and Sean could only pull an awkward smile and scratch the back of his head.

"U-um, hey... but isn't there a line?" Sean signaled to the Gems on the bench.

"Yeah, but it doesn't matter. You'll always be my number 1 student, so you have a pass." Olive replied with a wink.

"Oh, t-thanks, I guess. But this is not why I'm here for... I actually wanted to talk to you. But if you're busy, I can wai--"

Before Sean could even finish his sentence, Olive threw her sword on the ground and started marching towards him, leaving both Sean and Marine and also the other students dumbfounded at the abruptly. All the boy could do was shoot them an apologetic look as Olive led him and Marine outside and closed the door.

"So, what's wrong? What did you want to talk about?" Olive asked.

"Exactly. I'm also waiting to discover what it is, you know..." Marine remarked with an eye roll.

Sean took a long deep sigh while trying to figure out a way to tell it to them properly. He had no idea how they'd react; he had no idea if it'd even work as he intended it to, even. But it was definitely worth a shot, especially if he could help both himself and someone else.

"The thing is... I had another one of the dreams of my Mom's memories. But this is old news by now... I figured out something really important during the dream! I think I already told you guys that my Mom had a pearl and she appeared on the other dreams, right?"

"Yes, you did tell us. What about her?"

"Well, it seems like she and my Mom were friends! Like, really close friends. Every time Mom felt angry, or sad, she would always be there trying to calm her down. It's what happened in this one! And then Mom said she was really important to her, and she cared a lot for her, and that that's why she _told her everything_! Do you know what this means?!"

"Are you going to do what I think you are?" Marine asked.

"I don't know what you're thinking, but... I want to meet her. So that we can talk and clarify all of this. W-when I was younger, I... I-I always wanted to know more about her. You two didn't know, so I asked my Dad to tell me about her... and even if I wanted more, it was enough. But t-then, the thing with Amazonite happened, and... s-since then, I've been wondering _who_ she really was. It's like... she was two different people. I-I guess I'm seeing who s-she is now, but... maybe, if I talk to someone who was there for her most of the time, I can fix all of this. I need to try."

Olive put her hand on his shoulder.

"Look, Sean, I want you to know that I'll support you as much as I can on this mission of yours. But how exactly do you plan on doing that? I mean, there's no way you're going to every single pearl on the ship to ask them about Azurite..." She laughed, but since Sean said nothing, her smile faltered a little in fear. "...Right?"

"If I need to... I will." the boy said with determination.

"Sean, I... I also want to help you get rid of these dreams, and if that means knowing more about Azurite, then so be it. But... there's a thing." Marine hung her head, starting to tap her foot on the floor, with her hands behind her back. Instead of the worry that had been plaguing her for the past days, discomfort shaped her behavior. "The only purpose of pearls, like me, is to serve. If there's nothing to serve, then we have no purpose, unless we get reassigned."

"Y-yeah, I know... but we just need to find her! I'm sure her new... owner would let her have a talk with her if we ask nicely," Sean proposed. Using the word "owner" disturbed him, but he didn't know what else to use on its place.

Marine glanced at him and then bit her lip, before placing each of her hands on the shoulder of the opposite side, looking like she was hugging herself. Sean noticed she was shaking a little.

"H-hey, Marine... are you okay? W-what's wrong, did I u-upset you somehow?" he asked, extending his hand a little. As Marine still didn't answer, he looked at Olive for help.

"It's not just a normal reassignment. When a pearl's owner is shattered, or in your case, _gone_ , they... rejuvenate the pearl." Olive finished the sentence.

Sean let out a loud gasp and turned back to Marine before embracing her in a hug, starting to feel tears on the corners of his eyes. She slowly put her arms over his back too, still shaken from the disturbing topic but getting better.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to be insensitive! I-I... get why you'd be scared of it now..."

"It's... alright, Sean. W-what scares me is not the thought of being rejuvenated, but... w-whenever I think about it, I imagine... y-you being gone. That would be the worse part... and forgetting about you... I-I already almost lost you once, and if it had actually happened, I..." Marine put her hand over her mouth to suppress the sob that would replace whatever word she was saying next. After taking a deep breath, she pulled away from the hug.

"But... w-why do they do it? It's... not fair. I mean... w-when you live, you create memories and a personality... you become your own person. S-so, if someone takes all of that away from you, wouldn't it be like... k-killing you? Even if you're still there... t-the person you were before... is gone..."

"It's... pretty much what it is, honestly." Olive continued with a grim tone. "And that's exactly why they do it. Sometimes, even if all they do is serve them, pearls can get attached to their masters... and reassigning them to another Gem after that just wouldn't work. It's the reason why every single pearl who arrives here gets rejuvenated too, so they can forget their old life and be fully loyal to the Elementals."

So all the pearls he had seen around had suffered the same fate? Forced to abandon their lives to serve something else? They were totally oblivious about it, too; and their natural state of servitude probably made it easier for them to accept whatever anyone told them after the rejuvenation. They were just like the ones back in the Humans' Area. Living in a certain way because they didn't know any better.

"So what you're saying is... Mom's pearl was rejuvenated and reassigned after I was born?" It was his fault. All his fault.

"Most likely, yes... I-I don't see why they would keep her around with her memories intact when she could go... 'be useful' with someone else. They may have even transferred her to another ship... maybe if she saw your gem, she'd remember Azurite's gem and the whole rejuvenation process would have been useless."

"Thinking about it, rejuvenation isn't all that useful in the first place. They only do it because they don't want to waste any workers, but in the long run, if the Gem gets reminded of their past life, it's all useless." Olive scoffed.

"T-that's it... I've got to find her. And then remind her of everything that happened with my Mom... I'll be able to help her, and also myself!" Sean exclaimed. "If the Elementals discover this, they'll want to rejuvenate her again... b-but I can probably help her escape. I've done it before, after all... and after knowing everything, she probably won't want to be here..."

Marine looked a bit conflicted about it all. The thing she wanted the most was for Sean to find himself free of those terrible dreams once and for all, but putting himself in danger wasn't an appealing idea to her at all. But at the same time, if there was the slightest chance it could ease Sean's mind of what had been plaguing him, it was worth it. 

"We'll help you with this, Sean. We just need to figure out what to do." said Olive.

"The easiest way to locate her would be talking to the Commanders about the subject... but I was trying to avoid bringing up the issue of the dreams to them. Who knows what they'd want to do to you..." Marine whispered, biting her lip at the thought.

"We don't need to tell them it's because of the dreams... we can just say I heard somewhere that Mom had a pearl and wanted to meet her out of curiosity! It's... not l-lying, right?"

"Even if we did that... the Commanders receive hundreds, maybe thousands of requests every day. They wouldn't prioritize something like that, even for you... at the very best, it'd take months for them to start looking at it. Maybe years." 

His mouth gaped hearing that. The Commanders were the most knowledgeable and influential ones in the entire ship, but asking them for help was now out of question. Would they really have to take matters into his own hands? Sean was determined about it, but that didn't change the fact that he had no idea how to start.

"Yup, seems like we'll really have to get every single pearl in the ship and try to get her to remember your Mom, Sean." Olive said. It was almost impossible to know if she was joking or actually being serious, but Marine frowned at her either way.

"Uh... wait, I have an idea! What if we talked to the petalites? They're my friends and they also deal with this kind of tech stuff! There must be an accessible place where we can check all the Gems from this ship, and if there's anyone who knows about it, it has to be them! _Jackpot_!" Sean exclaimed and clapped his hands against each other for emphasis.

"It's not a bad idea, actually! Good thinking, buddy," Olive ruffled his hair with a smile, and Sean laughed. "By the way, what's 'jackpot'?"

"Thanks! And, oh, I don't actually know... I heard my Dad saying it before, and it seems like it's something you say when you win something."

"Anyway... that's the plan, then. When are you going to ask them, Sean?" Marine asked.

"I think I'm going right now, so I can get this whole thing over with as quickly as possible... but it may take long, since I have to find them first." said Sean. "So, uh, I'm going, and after I'm done, I'll go back to my room! See you guys later!"

"Alright, bye, Sean!"

Sean waved back to them and ran on a direction, trying to find the nearest general working room to look for his friends. His heart was beating fast at the thought of being able to discover the entire truth soon, and whether it was because of fear or excitement, Sean wasn't sure.

But a feeling of apprehension was beginning to take over him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's super weird that in my other stories, I always managed to reach the 10 pages mark, but with all chapters of this one I haven't. I also feel like the pacing of the plot so far has been weird; I'll try to improve that in the future.


	4. Seek

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sean seeks answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This actually didn't as long as I thought it would to come out! Yay!

"Let me get this straight... you want us to locate a rejuvenated pearl who may not even be in this ship at all?" said Pad.

All the petalites were staring at Sean with suspicious looks, as if they were expecting him to just start laughing at any moment and tell them it was a joke. They would probably react better if this was what had happened, considering just how _random_ the request was. But all Sean did was give them an awkward smile and shrug.

"Yeah, i-it's what I wanted... do you think you can do that?" the boy replied while scratching his neck, as a blush of shame covered his face.

"That's just so... unexpected. Why do you need that for?" Gold asked, with squinted eyes and a hand on her chin.

Sean closed his eyes and let out a sigh. "If I tell you guys, do you promise not to tell anyone?"

The three just stared at him deadpanning, which made Sean become even redder, and not even be able to stare at them in the eyes without looking away. If this was something they were trying to do to intimidate him, it was working quite well, and was just further proof that Sean didn't like keeping secrets from his friends.

"O-okay, okay, I'll say... I've been... having some dreams. I've had them during the expedition we went together on, and--"

"Oh, yes, I remember that! It was only three years ago... it feels like it was yesterday. Three years is almost nothing, after all!" Grassy exclaimed and clasped her hands together, instantly cutting Sean off. "Sorry about that. The memories got me excited. You may continue, Sean."

"Thanks... the dreams are related to my Mom... Azurite. I keep seeing her memories whenever I sleep, and I don't know how to control it... I wanted to understand. But in the last dream, I saw that my Mom said she told her pearl _everything_ , and with her, she behaved in a totally different way than she did with my Dad, considering what he told me!"

"So you think that if you find this pearl and revert the rejuvenation process, you'll be able to discover more about Azurite and stop those... dreams? Is that what they're called?" Pad said.

Sean nodded. For the next moments, the three just shot glances at each other while making some not-so-satisfied expressions; it seemed like they were talking on their own language which was incomprehensible to Sean. These seconds were somehow even more awkward than the staring session from earlier, as Sean felt left out and had no idea what to do. In the end, Grassy stepped backwards while shaking her head vigorously, and Pad, who was bearing an impassive expression, pointed at Gold. 

Gold slouched and let out a few grumbles to herself, then stepped towards Sean and went back to an upright posture. She clasped her hands together perfectly in front of her face, closed her eyes and breathed in, before opening her eyes and ponting her clasped hands at him. It was such a cerimony that Sean suspected she was about to tell him he was going to die in a week.

"You see, Sean... there _are_ databases regarding each member of a ship. I mean, of course we keep information about them... what kind of organization would we be if we weren't, well, _organized_..." 

"Really?! So I can find her! All I need to do is look at that, then I can see who she is with and ask to talk to her!"

"Calm down, I'm not finished yet! Look, eeh..." Gold looked back at Pad and Grassy for help, but the former ignored her and the latter gestured for her to keep going. "There is a little problem with all this."

Sean started sweating. "W-what is the problem?"

Gold wasn't even looking at him anymore, completely turned to the other two and frantically making signals for them to aid her in any way, while they glared at her and gesticulated even more, refusing. It was practically a silent war at that point, and Sean couldn't understand what was going on, much less find a way to help. He was about to call them when Gold turned back to him with a scowl that made him back out slightly.

"These are not available for public visualization, so you won't be able to see them!" Gold let out a high-pitched shriek, curling her hands into fists. She looked more relieved after letting that out, but recovered the anger in her stare when she looked back at her comrades. "You two cowardly traitors! Making _me_ disclose the bad news... now he's going to hate _me_!" She pointed at herself with her thumb.

"It's only fair. You two are always making me do the worse things just because I'm the newer one... it's about time you had to deal with the same things." Grassy said.

"H-hold on, guys! I'm not m-mad or anything... I don't hate you, this isn't your f-fault. But... can you explain this more? W-why can't I see it?" Sean intervened before this went back into a fight.

"Only the Commanders and Administrators can check to the census data. It wouldn't be logical to let everyone have access to it... some Gems are far too dumb, and some are far too smart. Both of these could damage the condidential information... so they'd rather play safe." Pad responded. Irritated, Gold slapped her shoulder.

"Are you... really sure? Is there really no way for me to see them?" Sean said hurriedly.

"Positive. You know, everyone talks about how you're the Commanders' favorite test subject... why don't you go and ask for permission?"

Sean looked down and bit his lip. It was much more complicated than just that; if that was all he needed to do to fix everything, he'd already have done it.

"I could, but... I doubt they'd let me do that if I didn't specify a reason. And like I said before, this is all a secret, so they can't know I'm having the dreams. I don't want to bother them if I can fix it myself, and Marine and Olive are worried about what they could do if they discovered."

"Huh, you could... access the files secretly, without permission. You'd just need to be careful to make sure nobody sees you." Grassy suggested, eliciting shocked gazes from her comrades.

"Are you insane?! That's _treason_!" Pad screamed, and in that moment, Sean was glad they had chosen to have this conversation in a private, empty room, or else they'd all be in deadly trouble.

"And there's no way they wouldn't find out! It would end terribly!" Gold complemented the argument, raising her arms to the air.

Soon, the three resumed their bickering, once again leaving Sean all by himself... alone with his thoughts. Only the Commanders and Administrators had access to that information... but they had already settled that asking them was out of question, at least for now. So who could help him? 

"Okay, okay, guys... please, calm down. It's fine." Sean soothed them. "Thank you a lot for this... you guys have no idea how much you helped me. All I need to do now is think of what to do... I'll find a way. So... see you later."

"Farewell, Sean! And you're welcome, since after all, _I was the one who did all the job_!" said Gold, and Sean couldn't be sure whether she was smiling or gritting her teeth in anger.

"I helped too! I'm the one who has the most knowledge, after all!" Pad added right after that.

"And don't forget that I gave you a very important proposition! Feel free to act on it!" Grassy said.

"Y-yeah, all three of you helped a lot, equally! Bye, guys!"

Sean rushed out of the room before his presence caused any more fights between them. Only then he could finally process everything properly. So the information he needed really was somewhere, but pretty much inaccessible... the only ways he could think of acquiring it was either through asking someone or following Grassy's suggestion and accessing it without permission. The second idea did make him feel guilty, and like Gold had said, they would probably find out about it.

He could ask Ametrine to help him. She was an Administrator, and that would probably create less suspicion than asking a Commander directly; the only bad part of the plan was that Ametrine was not fond at him at all. Sean couldn't remember a time in which she had actually been kind to him; the closest thing to that would be that one day when she was too tired of him to insult him and just opened the door so he could go inside. But Sean himself was always as polite towards her as she was with everyone, without waiting for anything in return. 

Even if there was a chance she would refuse, it was still worth a try. At this point, anything was. If not for the possibility to end the dreams, at least to end his aching curiosity and confusion.

When Sean came back to his senses, he was already in front of the door of his room, so he placed his hand on the detector and opened it, coming inside.

"Sean, you're back! So, how did it go?" Olive asked as she approached him.

"It went well... I think. They told me that the Elementals do have a place where they store all the info of the members, but... only the Commanders and Administrators can see it, and nobody else." Sean said with a sigh.

Marine also came closer and put her hand on his shoulder. "That's awful... I was beginning to fear something like that. Sean, I'm so sorry..."

"But... I-I had an idea! Maybe we could... you know, uh... gently ask Ametrine to let us take a look at it?"

The two Gems looked at each other with a half repulsed half shocked expression before staring back at Sean with the same look; in reponse, the boy shrugged awkwardly. Soon, Marine's look evolved to a sorrowful one, and in the verge of tears, she hugged Sean.

"Look at all this! This has gotten so bad that Sean is willing to go to _this_ length just to try and solve it!" she yelped. "Oh, I wish this wasn't happening to you... you don't deserve this! If I could, I'd just fix it myself right now! If I knew where this pearl was, I'd drag her here and pull her memories back just so she could tell you everything you want to know!"

"H-hey, hey... i-it's okay, Marine... I'll be f-fine. I'm not really... worried about all this... we don't need to get overwhelmed..."

"Yeah, Sean's right. I'm telling you, this may be bad now, but in a few years, we'll all be remembering and laughing at this!" Olive said.

Marine stopped hugging Sean, then took a deep breath and recovered her composure.

"Alright," she said, nodding. "But we'll be going with you, Sean. I don't trust that Gem."

"Neither do I... and I doubt she'd actually be able to do something, but if she does, I'll have my sword ready."

"T-thanks for wanting to protect me, but... p-please, don't attack her for no reason."

The three of them left the room again and started walking in the direction of the Humans' Area, slowing down after they took a turn and saw Ametrine standing next to the door and using a tablet.

"There she is! We just need to ask nicely, and maybe she'll let us!" Sean said.

"I don't want to discourage you, Sean, but I have my doubts. When you were younger and wanted to come here, I used to always take you, and had to wait outside for you to come back... and it was insufferable having to listen to her rambling in silence. She even insulted me sometimes." Marine said, annoyed, while crossing her arms.

"I-I'm sorry... but, um, we should try. You don't have to go if you don't want to..."

"No, no, of course I'm going! I'd rather be insulted than not go with you!"

"Look, if she says something really bad, I can just show her my sword." Olive remarked casually, and upon seeing the scared look Sean shot her, added, "Just kidding, I won't actually poof her. Unless necessary."

After some seconds of preparation, the group approached Ametrine. It took the tiny Gem a few moments to actually bother to look up at them; her first expression was of amazement, before going back to the frown she normally used, a look that could easily make a Gem feel intimidated and even "inferior".

"H-hello there, Ametrine! Uh... w-what a nice day it is, huh?" Sean pointed to a window showing the darkness outside. "The space... l-looks very pretty today! Nice stars, there and there... h-haha..."

"Listen here, dimwit... I have no idea what you're trying to do or why you brought your caretakers here, but I don't think I want to know, since just listening to your voice irritates me to no end," Ametrine spat nonchalantly. "So if you want to come inside and do whatever it is that you do with the rest of your species, just spare my time and do that."

Before Marine or Olive could do anything, Sean blurted out, "No! That's, uh, n-not what I came here for! N-not this time!"

Ametrine's look went back to the amused one, and she started floating to get closer to Sean, even if it still wasn't enough to get near his face, as it was only 1 meter above the air.

"What do you want, then?"

For some reason, Sean found himself at a loss for words. Asking for that was the only reason he had come there, but like his throat was blocked, no words came out of his ajar mouth. Ametrine's constant, unblinking stare was getting angrier every second that passed, while Sean only got more nervous.

"We came here to make a... request," Marine said in his place. Looking at her, Sean noticed that her posture was different: much more stiff, completely upright. "We wanted permission to look at a few classified files, and figured that as an Administrator, you would have access to those. Isn't that right?"

Ametrine began to prowl all around Marine, as if examining every movement or action she made to point out the slightest mistake. Marine seemed to notice this, as she refused to let herself stir, not affected in the least by Ametrine's presence. The two stayed in silence, before, surprisingly, _Marine_ was the one to break it.

" _Isn't_ that right, Administrator?" she repeated, her tone more firm this time, like her patience was starting to run out.

"You know, for _nothing_ more than a _pearl_ , you're quite feisty," Ametrine retorted, now in front of them again. "I don't like that. I don't know how being more with that hybrid influenced you, but this isn't how it's supposed to be. Maybe it's about time we should put an end to this rebellious behavior and replace you."

Something cracked inside of Sean when he heard those words. Replace? Replace Marine? Rejuvenate her, throw her away, end her, take her away from him and then put someone else in her place as if she was just a broken object? No. No. _No_. Sean didn't want that to happen, especially not for his fault. He wanted Marine and Olive to be with him forever, being treated as _people_ , like they were.

"Now _you_ listen here, you tiny twerp," it was Olive who spoke now, everything about her suddenly being much more intimidating as she stepped closer to Ametrine. "You will treat us with respect, because someone like you aren't better than us no matter what you think. If I see you insulting Sean or being disrespectful to Marine just _one_ more time, I'll make you regret it. Is that clear? If you don't think they're worthy of being taken seriously, then let me show you how serious _I_ am."

The silence after that was suffocating. Sean only understood why it felt like that when he realized his body was standing rigid, with his hands clenched into tight fists, and he was holding his own breath back, all in nervousness. He allowed himself to relax, if not mentally, at least physically, and swallowed to try and relieve the lump on his throat.

"Fine, let's just get all of this over with. Just tell me what you want already and I'll see what I'll do about it." Ametrine said with a sigh.

"W-we... w-wanted to look at, um... the... c-census files... of the s-ship..." Sean managed to stammer out, his voice shaky and almost imperceptible.

"The census files? Why would something like that interest you?"

Sean didn't know what to say, so he just said the first thing that came to his mouth, which also happened to be the stupidest excuse ever. "I-I just... want to l-look at them."

Ametrine stared at him unconvinced. "I can't help you, honestly. My job is only to take care of all these humans inside... I'm by no means obligated to actually let you see this kind of thing. If you want to see it so much, just go bother the Commanders instead."

It was something to be expected. It was the highest probability, even.

Sean only nodded.

"T-thanks, anyway."

He just turned around and started walking away, soon being followed by Marine and Olive. His mind was blank, but his chest was tight. Everything went by so fast that it felt almost like he had teleported in front of the door of his room. He raised his trembling hand and put it on the detector, before opening the door, coming inside, and sitting on his bed.

Marine and Olive sat next to him.

"We're so sorry," Marine said softly, brushing his hair with her hand.

"We'll figure something else out," Olive added almost in a whisper, and put her hand on his back.

Sean nodded.

"Yeah. We will."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you may have noticed, I changed my writing style a bit. I'm honestly very proud and satisfied of this chapter... I think it's the best written one so far. I'm not really good at writing descriptions, so lately I decided to do some exercises about them, and I think I managed to improve! And I actually managed to get close to 10 pages this time! :D


	5. Resolve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A decision is made.

___"May... I ask where we are going? My..."_

_The voice next to him had spoken meekly, cautiously. That pearl wasn't loud, he already knew it by then, but she normally spoke louder than just whispers. Maybe it was just because of how empty the corridors were; people tend to stay quiet when they're in quiet places, for some reason. Perhaps because they thought that breaking the imposing, constant silence would be some kind of shameful disrespect._

_"You'll see when we get there," he replied, trying to contain giggles. Not because he was worried about being direspectful to the silence, but because he didn't want to be noticed by anyone inside a room. "It won't take too long now!"_

_The two of them were silently running through corridors. The pearl trusted her master without thinking, following him as he took turns, but still skittish and worried about the two getting caught in the middle of this activity that she knew nothing about. After some time, they finally started slowing down as they neared one of the sections of the ship: the Humans' Area._

_It was the place where he worked. The pearl probably thought all of that was really weird, since he never took her to his working place, and her worry was amplified after he didn't stop there, and instead continued walking forwards, but chose not to say anything and kept following him. He finally stopped on a door right next to the one that lead to the Humans' Area._

_"Here we are," he whispered to himself, before placing his hand on the detector and opening the door._

_The room they found themselves in next was large, but not excessively. There was a screen in front of them, and on the walls on the sides there were some chests with drawers, a table with some chairs, and right in the middle of the room, a circle on the floor. He smiled upon looking at everything and then turned back to the pearl, opening his arms._

_"Welcome to the human nursery!" he announced, adding a chuckle in the end. "It's where we take care of pregnant humans to make sure everything will go well. I'm quite familiar with all procedures."_

_"Forgive my ignorance... but may I ask what 'pregnant' means?"_

_"Oh, yeah, haha! I forgot that a normal Gem wouldn't know... this may sound confusing, I didn't even understand it at first, but bear with me. C'mere."_

_The two went on the direction of the table and sat down on the chairs._

_"Okay, so... let's see..." he said, in an attempt to find a way to start explaining. "There are two types of humans: males and females. Us Gems are more like the females, but not quite. Depending on whether a human is male or female, some parts of their bodies are different... and when they, let's say, 'unite' those, something wonderful happens! The female human can get pregnant... which means that another human appears inside of her!"_

_"But... I-I still don't understand. What are the advantages of having another human inside of a body? And how would the human even fit inside them?" the pearl asked, with such confusion that it was almost possible to see a question mark above her head._

_"Well, it's reproduction! It's kind of like... having a kindergarten inside of their bodies. I was also confused about how they would fit, but I discovered that when humans first emerge, they're very small. Small enough to be cradled on a pair of arms." He smiled imagining such a scene. "Young humans like this are called 'babies'. And it may sound ridiculous, but they can't do_ anything _! Not even talk or walk! They're completely dependent on older humans to help them!"_

_"That sounds... impractical. No offense."_

_"I know it may seem like that... but I don't think it is. Humans are just so different from Gems... we think it's impractical because there's no reason for it to be like that, but humans don't need a reason to exist. When I stopped trying to find a reason for everything, I was able to appreciate the beauty of it all."_

_The pearl blinked at the words and looked down for some seconds. Was she trying to do the same thing and appreciate it? He didn't know, but he knew it was a long process, so she wouldn't be able to understand it in such a short time._

_"Going on... when we give them time, babies grow. Until they become older, and keep learning more and more things... and in the future, they can even have their own babies."_

_"I see... but why are we talking about human reproduction?"_

_He breathed in and out. "Because I think I made a baby with Finn."_

_Shock was not enough to convey the emotion on the face of the pearl in front of him. In less than a second, her expression changed drastically, from a calm one to one with wide eyes and a gaping mouth. And all he could do was shrug and chuckle nervously._

_"Look, I know what you're probably thinking... it was irresponsible of me to do that. Maybe it was! But I couldn't care less about it in that moment... both of us talked about it, and we wanted it so much. So I just dissipated my form at the first opportunity I had and reformed with a human reproductive system!"_

_"What will the Commanders think about this? They'll be furious if they discover you've been staying with the humans instead of working..."_

_"They can't know! We can't tell them... knowing this organization, they'd probably want to do all kinds of dangerous experiments with my baby, and I won't let them do this!" he almost shrieked. "I'll protect this baby at all costs. I'll just... give them to Finn once they're born. Nobody will suspect, they'll just think they're a regular human... I hope... but please, I beg you... don't tell anyone."_

_"Y... your secret is safe with me. If you want to protect this human, I will help you with that."_

_"Thank you... thank you so much." He looked down and put his hands over his belly, stopping at his gem. "I'm so excited that I'm doing this, but also... so scared. A human's time here is limited... their lifespan is nothing when seen by a Gem. So I can't help but think... I'll happily raise them, but will I regret this when they're gone? What's worse, never having them or losing them?"_

_The pearl opened her mouth, but no words left it. She was just as inexperienced in this topic as her master._

_"...Whatever, it doesn't matter. If it's done, it's done..." He got up from the chair and put on a smile again. "But the reason I came her was... I want to see them."_

_"See them? But how--"_

_"Here, just watch. I'll show you."_

_He walked over to the center of the room and stepped inside the circle, standing still and stiff, facing the large screen in front of him. After a moment, the screen lit up and its light scanned his body, which had started to shake slightly with anticipation. Then words appeared on the screen:_

_**HUMAN OFFSPRING DETECTED** _

_For a second, he almost jerked his head towards the pearl so they could celebrate together, but then remembered he had to stay still to finish the analysis. Soon, more words were written under the first sentence, and on the right side of the screen, some waving lines appeared under a drawing of a heart._

_**SEX: MALE** _   
**_SKIN: FAIR  
HAIR: WAVY BLACK  
EYES: GREEN  
HEARTBEAT: NORMAL  
HEALTH CONDITIONS: NONE DETECTED_ **

_And then, the last thing materialized itself on the screen. A tiny human, a baby, with legs and hands against his chest, closed eyes in his serene expression, and wavy locks on his head appeared._

_He should have been expecting that. He had seen it happen before. But it was..._ his _._

_Tears appeared on his eyes._

_"My..." the pearl started._

_He took a daring step forwards, and seeing how the screen didn't change, took another. He walked over to where the baby was and extended his hands forwards for a first touch._

_It wasn't the real baby, of course. The hologram baby didn't feel like anything, yet there he was, in his arms, unmoving, but beautiful to be admired._

_"Look at him... my baby..." Tears began rolling down his face as he smiled. "He's so... beautiful. He's perfect... I... I really made him..."_

_"He looks so... fragile," the pearl whispered, right by his side. "And so small... just like you said..."_

_"Do you want... to hold him?"_

_"I'm not sure if I should... could I?"_

_"Of course you can... I want you to meet him. I want you to be part of his family too..."_

_The pearl looked down at the baby and took him on her arms. The hologram didn't weigh anything, but he still felt heavy in her arms; though it was a weight she would be glad to carry. When she realized, she was smiling._

_"But what... should we call him?" she asked._

_"Finn and I were discussing some names... we decided that if our baby was a girl, we'd name her Alexia, and if it was a boy, we'd name him Sean." He rubbed his belly, where Sean was inside. "Nice to meet you... I love you, Sean."_

* * *

Waking up was a slow process. As Sean gradually opened his eyes, he could see figures in front of him, but their voices seemed to far away for him to understand what they were seeing; he figured that his vision was blurry because of sleep, and would soon be back to normal. But even as he blinked, it didn't recover, and when he felt something poking his cheek, he realized it was wet.

The boy sat up on his bed, now completely feeling the liquid leaving his eyes. He was crying? But he had just woken up. Why would he be crying? Then the memories of the dream he had just had came back to his mind, and it made a little more sense.

"I... I think I... was dreaming," Sean stated the obvious, just to calm himself down, assure himself he was back in reality now. Looking forwards, he noticed Marine and Olive sitting on his bed, staring at him with concern. "Uh... what happened? I don't remember... the last thing I remember is talking to Ametrine..."

"Yes, and then... we came back to your room. And you said you were feeling tired, so you wanted to rest..." Marine said, with her head turned away and hands close to her face. "But if it happened again... then I don't think you could rest at all..."

Sean wiped away the rest of his tears and stared down at his wet hand. The dream made him cry, but what exactly? Was he crying because his mother had been crying too, or just because of the scene itself? With his personality, crying because of something like that wasn't too far-fetched to imagine. Everything in the dream seemed to indicate that Azurite adored Sean.

"Sean... what was it about this time? Something bad?" Olive asked, holding his hand.

"No... no, it wasn't bad this time... it was... different." Sean said, still dazzled with all the information. "I saw my Mom... while she was seeing me. It was a projection of me when she was pregnant with me... with her pearl, too. And she looked so happy about me... she loved me."

Everyone was silent after that. Not even Sean knew what to say, until he finally broke the silence after a few minutes:

"I... don't understand. What was my Mom truly like? A-at first, Dad told me she was g-gentle and nice... then Amazonite t-told me she did something really b-bad to her... t-then, in my d-dreams, she always seemed a-angry or sad... and now she's... serene and loving to me? It's like... s-she's changing all the time. I'm so... confused and lost."

The dream he had just had just further confirmed that he _needed_ to seek for his mother's pearl and only stop when he finally found her; no matter how long it took. If there was an aspect of Sean that hadn't changed over the years, apart from his kindness, that surely was his curiosity, his yearning to understand Azurite better. Even though he knew much more than he did when he was younger, everything felt more confusing than clarifying.

"It's... it's alright, Sean. Everything will be better soon... I promise. I know what we have to do." Marine stated, still not turned to him.

"You... know how to find Mom's pearl? T-then... tell me! Please, I need to know!"

"No... I just want to put an _end_ to this. This has gone on for far too long... I can't let it keep going even more!" She got up from the bed, fists clenched, and voice shaky. "I didn't want to do this, but... there's no other way. We have to inform the Commanders of everything that has been going on."

"Wait, _what_?" Olive blurted out. "You're joking, right? I don't think _I_ should be the one to tell you why we should take this situation seriously, but... what are you saying?"

Marine turned back towards them, trying to keep herself calm, but failing, as her entire body was shaking and there were tears threatening to fall from her eyes. Sean noticeably flinched upon seeing her state.

"I just can't do this anymore, and I don't see any other way!" She spread her arms in dejected frustration. "We have an objective, but we don't have a plan! We tried and it didn't work! We don't even know if there is a way for it to work... and even if there is, how long is it going to take? Is Sean just going to have to stand here and _suffer_ for all this time?! No, I won't let that happen!"

"B-but I'm okay! I... s-seriously am! The... the dreams don't bother me. I just want to find Mom's pearl so I can u-understand! T-then the dreams will stop, b-because if I know e-everything, there's no reason for them to be there... a-and I'll be even more okay!"

"You can't know that, Sean! What if they _don't_ stop?"

"We won't know if we don't try! What makes you think _any_ of the Elementals would have an answer? You know everything they do! I thought that was the reason you didn't want to risk giving Sean to them in the first place!"

"Yes, it was, I'm not saying I trust them! But I'd rather do this than leave Sean... like this! They wouldn't hurt him... they want to protect him. They don't care about him in the way _we_ do, but... he's precious to them. Nothing bad will happen to him."

"Do you think Sean wants this? I can assure you he wouldn't if he actually knew everything that happens in this organization... but of course he can't know that _either_ , to 'protect' him. That's the worst kind of protection I've ever heard of."

Sean was sure his head was going to erupt like the volcanos he had seen in geography books now. It was so much to take that he could barely process what was being said; it was like Marine and Olive were playing ping-pong, but with words, and very aggressively.

"Guys! What's going on? Stop fighting, please, it's not going to make anything better!" he exclaimed. Thankfully, they listened to his words and stopped, but Marine's tears were still running down.

"I'm sorry... I have to do this!" Marine said before running out of the room so fast they only saw her as a blur before she disappeared.

Olive instinctively got up, but realizing it was pointless, sat back down on Sean's bed with a sigh. The boy pushed his blankets away and crawled to sit by her side.

"Are you okay, Olive?" he asked, looking up at her.

She glanced at him with a small smile, then let it fade as she stared forwards again. "Yeah, don't worry about it. You know, maybe she's right... maybe I shouldn't be trying to interfere. I was never good with this kind of stuff, anyway..."

"But you're not doing anything bad, you're trying to help me! And I love you for always being there for me, you're part of my family too, so I want you to be close to me!" Sean reassured her. "And... what was all of that about? You were talking about... what really happens in the Elementals... and that I wouldn't want any of this if I knew everything. W-what did you mean by t-that?"

"Look, it's... complicated." Olive started, with her head turned to him but her eyes looking away. "I didn't think before saying that in front of you. I may not agree with Marine being so overprotective of you about everything, but... I can understand _this_ , at least. It's all very... bad."

"I... want to know. Whatever it is... I don't want to have more things kept away from me. Just not knowing everything about my Mom is already so bad... I at least want to know everything about the place I've been in my entire life."

Olive sighed in distress and scratched the back of her head. "Alright. When Marine comes back, we'll talk about it with you. Deal?"

Sean nodded.

"Deal."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god. At this point even I am worried about my baby Sean. #savesean2020


	6. Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sean finally learns what was hidden from him for all his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes. Dark stuff just how I like it...

Sean's heart skipped a beat when he heard the sound of the noise opening, and by instinct, he rose to his feet. Marine came inside the room sheepishly, with her head hung and hands holding each other in front of her body.

"M-Marine, you're back! Are you o-okay? Did they do s-something to you?" Sean exclaimed, running up to her, putting one hand in her shoulder and using the other to hold one of her hands.

"N-no... I'm fine, Sean." she said simply.

Olive walked over to them. "We definitely need to talk after all this. You know what about."

Marine looked up. The expression in her face was not fear, just surprised distress; Sean gave her a nod. The three of them silently made their way towards Sean's bad and sat down, with the boy between his two caretakers. His gaze was turned to his lap, where his hands were clasped together.

"So, uh," he started. "I know that the Elementals... don't really do good stuff. They take Gems and humans away from their homes just to make them work or be studied... so they can gain more knowledge. I've always known that, and I've always wanted to change it... but... what else is there? What else is there that I don't know?"

He looked to his sides, expecting an answer. Marine was slouched forwards, with her elbows over her knees which were being pressed together, and her hands on the sides of her head; she was probably trying to hide her face, but moving forwards a little, Sean saw the panic on it. Her expression was basically saying "this wasn't meant to have happened".

Sean turned to Olive then. Her expression wasn't as distressed as Marine's, it was more unnerved than anything. Out of the two of them, Olive had always been the one to have more faith in Sean's capacities, to the point where Marine would feel the need to protect him constantly so he wouldn't be in danger. And if right now Olive was hesitant to tell him something, it was definitely really serious. Sean couldn't lie, the thought terrified him, but he tried to keep a balanced expression to convince them to talk to him.

"Oh, there's like... a plethora of things you don't know," Olive finally replied, and added a mirthless chuckle in the end of the sentence. "The thing is... the Elementals don't care. They don't care about anything other than their objective. This may even sound weird, since they're always making sure you're doing well and are so protective over you... but it's not a genuine feeling. They don't care about _you_ , Sean. They only care about what you are... what you represent."

Sean swallowed, and slowly nodded to Olive. "I... think I knew that, even if just subconsciously. To them... I'm an experiment. I'm not Sean, I'm just... a Gem-human hybrid. They keep me around to... study my unique development."

"That's exactly the gist of it. It's like... if there were, say, a hundred Gem-human hybrids here, they'd probably get blown to pieces every day, and the Elementals wouldn't care, because there would always be more to study."

"Olive!" Marine screeched in disapproval, finally opening her mouth.

"Alright, maybe I exaggerated, but I don't want to alleviate any of it anymore! Making it seem better than what it really is is an insult to everyone who suffered because of it!" Olive retorted.

"Y-you're right... I-I just want the truth. I don't want to sugarcoat anything anymore..." Sean said.

There was a pause before Olive continued speaking. "So, yeah, the main problem of the Elementals is that they're selfish. I've heard some Gems say that they're better than Homeworld was because they support cross-Gem fusions... but no, they just don't care, they just want work done. It may seem better, but it's not. Fusing is allowed, but only theoretically, because I've seen fusions get weird looks and be gossiped about everywhere, and nobody does anything to stop that."

That brought memories to Sean. Vague ones of when he was exploring the ship and saw Gems avoiding fusions like they were the worst thing in the Universe, only to approach others and start whispering about "filthy permafusions". When he was younger, the sentences merely confused Sean, and when he came back from his first expedition mission at age 13, they puzzled him to no end. He had fused with Marine. He had fused with Olive. And it felt amazing to bring their relationship to life. So why did everyone hate fusion so much?

"But honestly, the worst part is the experiments," Olive continued, her voice bringing Sean back to reality and away from his thoughts. "Like I said, they are careful with you because you're the only one they have, Sean. But if there's anything they have lots of, that thing is _Gems_. They're capturing and recruiting new workers all the time... to them, it doesn't matter if one of them breaks."

"Just like the humans," Sean whispered to himself in shock. The humans weren't forced to work like the Gems, but they were still slaves, and their job was to stay on their area obediently, without ever questioning anything, _for the rest of their lives_.

"They've done all kinds of experiments you could and couldn't imagine with the Gems who didn't pass their tests. The ones they call... worthless," Olive said. Her tone was getting more and more serious with each word. "They don't usually shatter them, they think it's a waste, since they can just use their gemstones to power their devices instead. But they still do it sometimes to study the shards, try to find a use for them... I have no idea what they actually do. I just know it's not good."

There was more silence after that. Sean was glad for the temporary break he was getting, because the subjects were getting darker, but at the same time, he _needed_ to know, and each second that passed tightened the grip in his stomach. But, still, he acted like it didn't bother him. He needed to seem strong.

"But one of the worst things they've ever done was the Epsilon Kindergarten." 

With the corner of his eye, Sean noticed Marine shiver by his side, just by the mention of these words themselves. Considering the education he had had, Sean definitely knew what a Kindergarten was and how it worked, but he had never heard of this Kindergarten in particular; neither in the classes he had with Marine, nor by hearing anyone mention it in a conversation.

"Epsilon Kindergarten?" he repeated.

"Yeah. I don't actually know the whole story with details, so..." Olive made sure to get closer to Marine when saying the last part. 

Marine let out a long sigh and sat up properly, before she started narrating with an emotionless tone:

"It happened thousands of years ago. The Elementals didn't want to keep risking being discovered when capturing Gems... so they decided to build their own Kindergarten and harvest their own Gems to work for them so everything would be easier. It took about a hundred years just to find a viable planet and set everything up there... but when the Gems started emerging, they weren't what they had expected. They were, well... _defective_."

Naturally, Sean had also learned of "defective" Gems before, and had also seen and interacted with some in the corridors. To him, there was nothing wrong with them, they were just different, and that was totally fine. He was also different; different from both humans and Gems. Neither Sean nor defective Gems fully belonged somewhere, and this meant they could just be _themselves_ , without trying to commit to a tradition.

"Most of them were deemed unsalvageable, meaning they weren't able to work like the Elementals wanted them to... so they were useless to them. So they just decided to study them... try to see what made them different from Gems that came out 'right', analyze their imperfections... and these experiments were all very..." Marine trailed off, unsure of how to finish the sentence.

"Brutal," Olive completed it for her. "It was torture for them. Countless Gems were shattered, Sean... and nobody ever talks about it anymore. Not because of respect, but because they consider it a failed mission. The only proof that this genocide ever happened are the records they left behind..."

"C... can I see them?" Sean said, to the surprise of both of them. "The records... a-are they p-public?"

Olive and Marine glanced at each other, before the latter sat closer to Sean and put her hands over his shoulders.

"I understand you're curious... it must be shocking to you to hear all of this after so long, but... I don't think some of the things these records say would be appropriate for you to know about..."

With a sad expression on his face, Sean placed his hands over Marine's own and brought them to his lap. "I know... it'll be hard for me to read everything with details, but... I need to. I want to understand it fully. So, please... let me."

"Okay," was Marine's answer, in the form of what sounded like a sob. Her gem then started to glow, and out came a tablet; Sean knew about the power pearls had to store items on their gems, typically for their masters, but he had only rarely seen her doing that. "You don't have to read everything... if you don't want to. We'll understand."

Olive put her hand on his shoulder. "Exactly. We don't want to feel like you're forced to do this... if you start feeling bad, you can stop any time you want."

"Alright... thanks."

Sean held the tablet on his hands. In front of him was its plain white screen, but clicking on a button on the top, some options appeared for him to choose: Cross-Fusion Experiments, Shards Fusion Experiments, Epsilon Kindergarten, Human Experiments... he couldn't read the rest because just these ones were enough to make his vision go blurry. Sean swallowed to hold in a gag.

"All of these are experiments conducted by the Elementals," Marine explained. "We'll... give you some space now. So you can read in piece."

He wanted to answer, but he feared that opening his mouth would cause him to let out a gag or a sob, so he simply nodded, and then Marine and Olive got up and sat down on the table in the middle of the room. Sean figured that if he was going to see this, he should at least try to make himself the most comfortable as possible to try and avoid unwanted reactions, so he lied back down on the bed and covered his body with the blankets.

It took him over an hour to read everything. Every word both compelled and appalled him, and he couldn't take his eyes off the screen, even when he had to keep his hand over his mouth to keep himself from vomiting. Even though the things he read had never once went through Sean's head as something possible, the sentences came to life in his imagination, creating images of scenarios that made his blood run cold. Apart from the brutality of the experiments themselves, what disturbed Sean the most was the casual, unconcerned, _normalized_ way in which they were described.

Isolation. Pain. Death. None of that were normal, but they were being portrayed as such. They shouldn't be. It was what made Sean realize that all of that had been organized in a completely amoral way; not once had anybody gave a thought about what the ones they were experimenting on were feeling. A myriad of thoughts hit Sean all at once and he let go of the table, bringing both hands to his mouth.

"Sean!" Marine and Olive screamed simultaneously before getting up and running to him.

Sean let out a sob as tears ran down his face to his hands. He squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting to see any more of that, but he couldn't close his mind, so the thoughts still plagued him; Sean found himself too shocked to even speak, as every time he opened his mouth he'd only let out more hiccup noises. 

This time it took him almost an hour to calm down, or at least reach a state in which he could speak without breaking into tears every minute. Olive and Marine stayed by his side the whole time, silently trying to make him feel better as they wondered if letting him read those files was the best option.

"I don't understand," Sean said as he wiped his tears. "Why... why would... they do all these things?"

"Nobody understands. I don't even think they know why they're doing this... they're just insane for knowledge, that's all. Don't waste your time trying to understand these things." Olive said.

"If I wasn't the only human-Gem hybrid they had... w-would they do these things w-with me or the other ones, t-too?"

The answer was obvious: of course they would. If even Sean had wondered a lot about himself as he grew, there was no way the Elementals hadn't; he was their experiment too, after all. He only hadn't undergone those terrible experiments because he was the only one, and they couldn't afford to lose him if anything went wrong.

"Definitely." Olive responded, confirming his thoughts.

"I see," said Sean before a pregnant pause. "I... don't think I want to be here."

"What do you mean, Sean?" Marine asked worriedly.

"I don't feel comfortable living in this place anymore... knowing all of this," he explained. "I-I want to leave. I want to live somewhere nice, w-with everyone... I-I want to stop all of this."

"How would you do that?"

"Escaping from the ship... like how I helped Amazonite escape. All of us can go."

"But it's different now, exactly because of that. There's more security now." Olive said.

"Y-yes, but... I-I know we can do it. I-if we all help each other... the petalites are super smart, I-I'm sure they can make a plan! And then... I-I just have to find a way to get Dad out of the H-Humans' Area... but before we go... I want to find Mom's pearl..."

Marine and Olive were about to say something, when the door of Sean's room was open and Ametrine, accompanied by a few quartz soldiers, came inside, shocking everyone. Sean gripped his bed sheets tighter, paling at the sight.

"Before any of you do anything, I'll inform you that I was authorized to conduct this emergency procedure, and I don't need or want your consent for it. Any attempts of resistance will result in punishment, so you better cooperate." Ametrine stated.

"What does any of this mean? Why are you here?" Olive asked them.

"Well, I was informed that Sean was having a few health problems, and I'll have to do something to stop that. What a bummer, but I guess it's my job to run tests on him to fix his stupid issues." she responded in a tone that made it more clear she hated having to do that.

Sean got up from his bed. "Alright... I'm going."

"S-Sean?" Marine said, looking at him.

"I just... don't want any fights. If that's what I have to do, then I'll do it." he told her and Olive. "But it's alright... when I'm back and better, we'll be able to continue doing what we were going to do."

Sean walked towards Ametrine who was surrounded by guards. She smirked and started floating like she always did when she was next to him, and before Sean could ask her what to do, she pulled a syringe and injected it on his wrist, causing a quick but sharp pain that made him shriek.

Everything went hazy. He heard something that sounded like his name. When he was about to fall backwards, someone caught him.

And then everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it was in that moment that Sean knew... he was majorly fucked--


	7. Action

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sean decides to finally take action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate summary: shit gets real part 2.

_It was all a dream. It had always been just a dream._

_Sean and everyone else were safe in a nice place. A beautiful place where they didn't have to worry about any organization trying to trap them, or anything at all. A place where the sky was blue, the grass was green on the floor, illuminated by the rays of light from the Sun. Everything was perfect, and Sean loved it all._

_There was a hill in front of them. Olive, Marine and Finn were in front of him, and they were all climbing it. When he reached the top, he saw the whole world right there in front of his eyes, and it was the best sight Sean had ever laid his eyes on. He smiled._

_"I'm so glad we're here," Marine said, putting a hand on Sean's back._

_"We can all be happy together now," Olive added as she ruffled Sean's hair._

_"And nothing will ever ruin this," Finn said and hugged Sean._

_Sean had never been happier before. Everything was perfect, save from that cramp on his chest; probably just an affect of climbing the hill too fast, but who could care about some pain when he had such a beautiful landscape in front of him and the people he loved the most around him?_

_"This is what I've always wanted for us," Sean said. "I'm so glad we get to be here all together."_

_A shiver ran through Sean's body, causing him to jump slightly. It originated from his right wrist. He ignored it, just like he ignored the worsening chest pain._

_"Good, because we'll be here forever," Olive said._

_Sean laughed. The pain was getting really bad now. It was on his ankles too, making it hurt to stand up, so Sean sat down on the grass. It didn't ease._

_"We can explore the planet as much as you'd like, Sean," Marine proposed._

_They could. But Sean would rather wait a little, since he wasn't sure if he would be able to walk with that horrible pain everywhere in his body._

_"T-that... sounds, ah, great." Sean said while rubbing his chest._

_"I can show you everything about Earth, Sean," his father said and then started rambling about places and stuff, but Sean couldn't even hear him with everything he was feeling._

_Panting, he lied down on the ground, biting his lip to keep himself from crying out. Everyone was smiling. Did they not see how much pain he was in? It wasn't normal. It was wrong. All Sean wanted was to stop feeling that and continue being happy with his family on Earth. How had he even gotten there?_

_Had he ever gotten there?_

* * *

Sean snapped his eyes open, gasping for air. While his vision adjusted itself from just waking up, he could hear beeping. Even without seeing, he could reckon he wasn't on Earth, he was still in the Elementals' ship, he had never left. But even though he had left his dream, the pain continued. Blinking rapidly, Sean noticed he was in a very, very bright place, and soon realized that the room he was in was all white.

The next thing he realized was that his back was against a surface and he was staring up at the ceiling. But as soon as Sean tried to get up, he found himself unable to, as if there was something holding him down. Turning his head to the sides and then lifting it to look his body, Sean made a terrifying discovery: there were tight restraints on his wrists, chest and ankles, and there was not one, but _two_ syringes embedded to his antecubital fossa, or as he called it, his elbow pit. Also, he was, for some reason, dressed in a gray gown.

"W... w-what's going on...?" Sean asked out loud, voice shaking. He had no memory of getting there, and trying to remember it gave him a headache. 

Ametrine popped up in front of him, floating, almost making Sean shriek in surprise. Though her expression was serious, there was a trace of satisfaction in it, probably caused by looking down at him in that situation.

"Oh, you're awake. I didn't expect the effect of the injection to wear off so soon... ugh, I can't believe they provided me with such _useless_ equipment... well, better go get some more." she said while rolling her eyes, and was about to leave when Sean called out for her. 

"W-wait! Please, don't... d-don't do a-anything. I don't understand what's g-going on..."

Ametrine let out the loudest sigh she could possibly create. "You're such an idiot, aren't you? Your caretaker contacted the Commanders to find a cure to your latest little predicament, so here I am trying to do something! I'm running all kinds of tests!" She pointed to his right, where there were the tubes linked to the syringes on his arm: one contained a water-like substance being injected into his vein, and the other one was almost empty, but contained the blood the other syringe was pulling out. He was also able to see a heartbeat monitor behind the two, the origin of the beeping noise.

"B-but... n-no, this isn't r-right... we don't need this! I'm... fine p-physically! The problem is... my d-dreams!"

" _Of course_ I know that, I pay attention to my job and I'm not as dumb as you. I was trying to fix that too, but now you woke up and ruined everything. Look." Ametrine grabbed a mirror nearby and pointed it to Sean.

He gasped upon seeing his reflection. There were lots of tubes connected to his head, glued to his scalp by some kind of grayish mass, and they were leading to something behind him that Sean couldn't see. 

"W-what are those in my h-head?!" he yelped, for a moment trying to use his hands to touch it, but then remembering they were tied. "A-and why am I tied a-anyway?"

"It's to measure your brain wave activity during your sleep. And, well, you're restrained because I didn't want to risk you ending up showing some... resistance," she said, adding a giggle in the end. "But there's no reason for you to keep asking so many questions, because I don't want you awake, so I'll administer another shot on you."

"N-no, not again! P-please, wait!"

Ametrine ignored him, however, and turning his head to the left, Sean saw her at a counter, putting liquid inside a syringe. Sean started squirming in attempts to break free, but it just made everything worse because of the pain on the places under restraints, and he kept grunting in pain.

"Stop that, will you? You're only going to hurt yourself even more. Not that I care... I'm just tired of hearing your whiny crying."

Sean saw her coming towards him, before pushing his head away to expose his neck, and he could feel the sharp tip of the syringe's needle on his neck; it was all too stressful for him, so his jerked his head to the side, causing Ametrine to drop the syringe on the floor, where it was shattered on impact.

"Hey! What in the stars was that?! Ugh, you little... you keep giving me more work! But I'm not giving up on this... I'm going to do this, even if you have to be held still by the strongest guards of this ship!" Ametrine yelled at him, angrier than he had ever seen before.

"I-I'm sorry, I--"

"Shut your stupid mouth! I don't want to hear your pesky voice any time soon, hear me? And if you don't start behaving, things will get really bad for you!" The harsh words immediately made him close his mouth. "Now I have to prepare another syringe... you'll pay for this."

She turned away and went back to the counter, starting to open some drawers. Sean looked at the bonds all over his body and decided that he didn't want that. He didn't want _any_ of that, and if that was what he had to go through to fix his problem, he would make himself not need it. As silently as possible, he started employing as much force as he could in those areas, trying to ignore the blinding pain that came alongside that.

And then the bonds ripped. Sean sat up, finally free, and Ametrine turned to him in shock.

" _You_! How did you do this?! Stop that! Lie back down and let me put those on you again right _now_!" she screamed in such a loud and high-pitched way that Sean feared the glass of the syringe she was pointing at him like a sword would break.

"I-I'm sorry, I... I-I can't, I don't want this... I never w-wanted this! I only... want to get out, and... see Marine and Olive again!"

Almost involuntarily, Sean jumped out of the "bed" he was onto the floor, feeling its coldness dominate his bare feet. And before he could even think, he ran towards the door and after putting his hand against the detector, pushed it and sprinted outside. He turned to a random direction, he didn't even know where he was going; he just couldn't be there anymore. Everyone in the corridors was staring at him, wondering what he was doing running around looking like that, but Sean didn't pay them any mind. He ocasionally bumped into some Gems with the uncontrollable speed he was using, but all he did was mumble an almost incoherent "sorry" and continue running.

His mind was completely blank. He didn't know where he was or how to go anywhere. Even without pressing his hand to his chest, Sean could feel his heart beating with every step he took, so fast it was like both his heart and legs were running a marathon. Somewhere, he just needed to get somewhere safe where he could stop and think logically about what to do, but at the same time he couldn't stop out of fear he was still too close to where Ametrine and her guards had been, and they would capture him and bring him back to that room.

Sean looked back for a second to see if there was anyone running after him, but as soon as he turned back around, he collided face first against someone and, with a shriek, fell to the ground. The floor felt hard and cold against his body, and he knew he couldn't stay there, though he found himself unable to get up; Sean was so exhausted he thought he was going to vomit right there.

"Sean?!" a voice screamed behind him with worry. It came distorted on his ears, hurting his head, and Sean was too out of breath to say any word.

His body allowed itself to be picked up; the touch was firm, but gentle. When Sean looked up, a tired but relieved smile appeared on his face.

"Olive, I'm so glad you're here..." he whispered so silently and tiredly that he didn't even know if she had heard or understood it. All the words felt just like panting breaths.

Sean closed his eyes, relaxing for the first time since he had woken up in that room. Everything felt calmer, more tranquil, even when he notice they were moving. He finally felt safe. Soon they stopped again, and Sean assumed that they had arrived in his room; it was so quick that he didn't know if had fallen asleep during the trip. But his suspicion that they had arrived was proven true when he heard a squeal in Marine's voice.

"Sean! Is he alright?! Is he hurt?! What did they do to him?!" she screamed. Sean felt a soft, comfy surface against his back. He was in _his_ bed now.

"I have no idea! I was about to go give a fighting class when he was running and bumped into me in a corridor, and I think he's too tired to speak."

Opening his eyes slightly, Sean glanced around the room. "Guys, I'm okay..." he attempted to say, but they didn't hear.

"Oh, no, this isn't good... you were right, I shouldn't have informed anyone of what was happening! I was supposed to keep him safe, and now, look at him...!"

"There's no use on thinking about that anymore, the past is the past and what's done is done. What matters now is helping Sean recover and giving him whatever he needs."

The two were silent for a while before they approached Sean's bed and sat down to be closer to him.

"Sean... how are you feeling right now?" Marine asked, rubbing his cheek gently.

"I'm... just a bit tired. But I'm okay." It wasn't a lie. He was okay, physically.

"Do you mind telling us why were you running? Just... what did they do to you? If you don't feel comfortable talking about it right now, that's perfectly fine, remember that." Olive said.

"I... I was... scared. T-that they'd make me... an e-experiment... and... I-I didn't want to... so I ran away... I shouldn't have done that! W-we'll all get in trouble now... that's why we need to l-leave..."

"Of course... but don't forget that we need a plan for that. If we tried now, it wouldn't end well."

"Y-yeah, I know... I still have things to solve here, t-too."

Everything had gone from bad to worse, and Sean had no idea how he would do the investigation to find Azurite's pearl now. The Commanders would probably be furious when they found out about his escape; what if they fully forbid him from leaving his room? He would be stuck there for even longer, then, and Sean wasn't sure if he could handle that. If he was going to act, it had to be _now_.

Sean straightened up and looked up at Marine and Olive. "I need to find everything out right now."

"What?" both of them said at once with the same level of confusion.

"Mom's pearl... I need to find her now. When the Commanders find out what happened, everything will just get worse, and it'll all probably just delay our plan of escape... s-so we have to do it as soon as possible," Sean said. "I'll go into one of the Commanders' rooms and try to discover the files."

"You're... right. Do you want us to come with you?" Olive asked, as Marine was too touched to speak.

"It'd raise suspicion... I-I don't know how I'm going to do this, b-but I'm doing it alone. I'll do my best... and I'll be safe. B-but first I need to get changed..."

Sean got up from the bed and after quickly putting his normal clothes back on, he hugged Marine and Olive tightly before moving to the door. With tears on his eyes, he gave them a confident smile and ran out of the room into the corridors. It was hard for him not to be openly friendly and greet everyone who came on his way, but right now the last thing he needed was to be noticed, so he made sure to keep his head low and ignore everyone.

Taking the less frequented corridors strategically, Sean finally let himself look forwards again. Everything was going well, and his mission was set on his mind, when he went through a familiar door. His body instantly came to an involuntary jolt and he turned his head to it.

"Mom's room..." 

It wouldn't take too much time, and he needed to do this. Taking a deep breath, Sean put his hand on the detector and came inside, closing the door behind him. The room hadn't changed, everything still laid in place untouched; yet initially it felt so unfamiliar and different for Sean. But as he took steps and touched the walls, it felt like rediscovering something lost.

"It feels like it's been ages since I was last here... it's nostalgic..." Sean said out loud. "I don't know how to feel about this... I've been so confused about everything lately. It's like a bomb has been dropped in my head... b-but it's nobody's fault. I needed to now. I think."

Sean turned to the large painting picturing his mother on the wall.

"I've been seeing things through your eyes... I've been feeling your feelings too. And sometimes I feel like I've been living your life. It's... weird. Not necessarily bad... but some of the dreams disturbed me, because... I didn't know who you truly were. And... I don't blame you for the dreams. I think this is another thing that is nobody's fault..."

He sat down on the ground and stayed silent for a few minutes, hugging his legs.

"I'm not sure why I came here... I-I just needed some time to process everything that just happened. This... may be the last time I'm coming here... because I want to get out. Go live in Earth with everyone... and just be happy there. I think that you also wanted something like that... with Dad, and... maybe with your pearl too. I'm about to try and find out who she is, so hopefully we can take her with us, too."

Finally, Sean got back up.

"So... goodbye, Mom."

He left the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm glad I was able to get this chapter out now. My internet hasn't been too good these days, which makes writing more difficult :( I hope it doesn't take long for me to finish the next one!


	8. Reveal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The shocking truth is revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh yes... finally

The first thing Sean did after leaving his mother's room was look for the petalites, and fortunately, it didn't take too long for him to find them. He took them to somewhere private and disclosed his entire plan to them; it took them some minutes to recover after having so much information dumped into them at once, and Sean wasn't sure how, but he had managed to convince all three of them to help him and even come alongside him and his family to Earth. Grassy was excited but nervous about the whole thing, Gold was only worried about their security, and Pad thought it was all a terrible idea but went along with everything anyway.

"So, in the end, you'll follow _my_ suggestion to access a Commander's personal files?" Grassy said with a smug look directed at her comrades, who were looking away with their arms crossed.

Sean nodded with a sigh. "Yeah. There's really... nothing else I can do. They may be hunting for me right now, and if I get caught, the entire plan goes down the drain... so I have to be extra careful about this whole thing."

"Naturally. You don't have to worry about infiltrating the room itself... leave this part to us, and all you'll have to do is use your eyes to read the files." Gold replied matter-of-factly.

"And don't forget we're putting our gems on the line for this. Ugh, such treason... I don't know what would be worse, be discovered and punished for this or _not_ be discovered and have to spend the rest of my miserable life knowing how much of a rebel I am!" said Pad.

"Y-you don't have to do it if you d-don't want to... really. I'll understand..." Sean said, but Pad flinched at his words and stared at him like he had just accused her of shattering her superiors.

"What? I'd never back out! I mean... I already know about the whole plan. Either way I'd feel guilty. Look, it doesn't matter! Let's just do this! You stay here in this very room and wait for us to come back, Sean."

He complied, and sat down against a wall as they left. Sean didn't think much about anything during the time, making it go by much faster. When he finally received a signal, Gold came inside the room alone, and Sean's body immediately jerked up and ran towards her.

"Gold, you're back! Are you alright? Where are the others?"

"I'll explain it! Oh, everything went even better than I expected! Of course it was perfect... I mean, I was there!" Gold started, giggling. "Here's our ingenious plan... we used a random tablet to hack into one of the Commanders' security network, severely damaging the images of the cameras! We got rid of the tablet immediately after that so they couldn't track us, obviously. It _so happened_ that we were standing right by the side of the Commander's room when she got out to see if there was anyone nearby... and she called us to go fix the cameras before leaving!"

"So Grassy and Pad are there?"

"Positive. It would raise suspicion if we all left the room after being given a direct order by a superior, so I went on the risky mission to come and escort you to the room."

"Thanks for everything... alright, let's go!"

It took some time for them to arrive because they had to take the corridors with less people in them, which could be the most distant ones. When they finally came inside the room, Sean saw Grassy and Pad inside.

"Finally you two arrived! Let's get this over with as soon as possible, so go check the files, you hybrid!" Pad exclaimed, pointing to a technological-looking computer composed of just a touch screen over the desk.

Sean sat down on the chair in front of the desk and clicked the screen, making it light up. The first thing that appeared was the figure of a hand, and Sean figured he needed to prove he was an Elemental to use it, as expected. Placing his hand over it granted him access, but surprising Sean, another screen appeared, this time showing a tall rectangle.

"What does this mean?" Sean asked. The petalites didn't need to come and look, as they were already peeking at everything on his sides.

"It looks like you need something else to gain full access..." Grassy started.

Pad let out a scoff. "Well, that was already quite obvious!"

"We should start looking for something, then."

While the petalites started looking on the shelves and boxes around the room, Sean focused on the desk. While searching through some disks, he ended up finding a silver key; he looked everywhere around to find a place with a lock, soon noticing there was a locked drawer on the desk in front of him. Using the key and opening it, Sean found a small, rectangular card. In less than a second, the other three had already agglomerated themselves around him again.

"Look, I found this inside the drawer... it's some card, but there's not actually anything in it..." Sean said ashe spun the card around to look at the opposite side.

"Try putting it on the screen!"

Sean did as the suggestion told him, and to his relief, the screen became green as soon as he did. It then changed to a menu with many options for him to choose; he waited a few seconds but the petalites said nothing, probably because it was far too obvious, and Sean just clicked on the one labeled "Files" with his finger. It was then that he realized he was shaking a little, and his hands were sweaty; the thought of failing on this was terrifying. Mainly because he knew they'd take it out on his friends and family if they were found out, and that would be worse than him getting punished.

As if the Elementals had read his thoughts, noise came from the door. Sean's heart skipped more than one beat when he realized someone was pushing the door from outside, they were _coming in_. Thankfully, though, he didn't need to think as the petalites did this for him and all three simultaneously shoved him under the table before he could be seen. Hidden under there, Sean held his breath so he would make the less amount of noise possible.

"So, have you three already finished fixing my cameras?" a booming voice spoke. Sean's mind was racing so much he couldn't even recognize what kind of Gem it belonged to, though it seemed very bossy.

Grassy laughed. "Hahaha, not yet!"

"May I ask what's so funny about not one, but _three_ of you taking so long to solve my problem?" the Gem said again, irritated, and Sean had to put his hand over his mouth to suppress a yelp of fright.

"Oh, absolutely nothing funny!" Pad replied hurriedly. "You know how it is... she's very new, she still doesn't quite grasp how she should act... don't blame her."

"And we'll call you as soon as we manage to bring everything back to its normal functionality, my Commander! You don't have to worry about a thing! We're only taking long because we're trying to find a way to localize where the location the malfunction came from, to hopefully identify the traitor who did this!" Gold completed.

There were a few seconds of silence and Sean could feel his anxiety hitting the roof as he wondered if everything was ruined. But when he heard footsteps as the Gem turned around to leave, he _almost_ allowed himself to sigh in relief.

"Don't take too long." was the last thing he heard before the door was shut again.

The petalites crouched down to look at Sean under the desk. "Okay, you can come out now! It's safe."

"Oh, w-wow... t-that was such a close one... for a m-moment, I thought we were done..." said Sean, not able to keep himself from glancing at the door. "Are you sure s-she won't come back?"

"I _sure hope_ so," Grassy said, sounding more annoyed than worried. "Or else I don't think I'll be able to keep this facade up and tell her a few very _traitorous_ things!"

"O-okay, okay, l-let's just focus on, um, f-finishing this as fast as possible..."

Sean sat down on the chair again to see the screen still giving him a myriad of files to choose from. He skimmed through all the names, trying to find the one he was looking for, until Pad pointed at it with her finger.

"There they are! The census files!" She used her own finger to press on them.

This took them to a light gray screen with a few buttons on the top. Clicking on one of them, Sean was given the option to filter through the types of Gems for an specific cut.

"Okay, I'm looking for a pearl... so I guess I'll choose the pearls option!" Sean said and clicked on it. Many squares filled the screen immediately after he did so, each one showing a picture of a pearl. None of them looked even remotely happy in them. "N-now, uh... what do I do to find her?"

"I guess you'll have to tap on each one to see their owners until you find her?" Grassy suggested, shrugging.

"B-but that would take f-forever! And that Commander would p-probably come back and..." Sean swallowed, starting to panic.

"Well, you're looking for an azurite's pearl, right? Azurites are blue Gems, and a Gem's pearl is typically made to look like them, so you should only look at the blue pearls!" Pad said.

"Not necessarily. Did you forget pearls have default customization modes? Just because you'll never ever have a pearl in your life doesn't mean you shouldn't know about them!" Gold retorted, making Pad glare at her, ready for a fight.

"O-okay, I'll just... I-I don't know, try to check everything really fast!" Sean said.

He started tapping on each picture, which led him to a page with all characteristics and a basic summary of each pearl, with a section dedicated only to all owners they had throughout their time spent in the Elementals, and even before. Sean could have spent hours reading each page carefully, but now he had no time to spare, and every time he didn't seen an azurite as marked as a previous owner, he just went back to try the next one, and every time he did, he lost all his hope the following second as these were not his mother's cut and facet.

Sean was exhausted when he stumbled upon a familiar photo. A smile came into his face as he stared at Marine, and for no reason at all, found himself clicking on her profile. He had always wondered about what was Marine's life like before he came along, and now he had a chance to discover. But as his eyes read through her page, Sean found himself frozen in place.

"No," he muttered with a noticeable voice crack. "No, this... it can't be. Is this..."

"What? Is this her?! Did you find her?!" Gold practically screamed, shaking the motionless boy.

"Finally! I thought we were going to be stuck here forever, I'm so glad!" Pad exclaimed.

"This is astouding! Ha, I'm so glad we did this!" Grassy said, and jumped with a smile.

Sean's eyes were still glued to the page. At that moment, his world just felt frozen, like he wasn't actually in his own body. He couldn't move. Almost couldn't breathe.

"But this... is impossible, it... I... she..." 

"Alright, we've fulfilled our mission! Now all that's left is fixing those cameras and leaving as soon as possible!"

"Marine... is Mom's pearl..." Sean whispered. Even when he said it out loud, it didn't feel real.

"Uh, what did you say?" Grassy asked.

Sean got up from the chair stiffly. "Marine is Mom's pearl... my caretaker... she was right in front of me the whole time..."

He wasn't sure how he was feeling. He wasn't sure how he _should_ be feeling. What had the Elementals done? Had they rejuvenated her? Sean knew Marine wouldn't hide such a fact from him for so long; she had hid the Elementals' true nature from him, but that was to protect him. There was no reason why she would hide her past with Azurite from him, especially when she knew he had spent so much time thinking about finding her pearl. Especially when she knew she could help him if she talked to him about it.

"What a shocking turn of events!" said Grassy, bringing her hands to her head.

"Eh, not really shocking... it does make a lot of sense. I mean, why would the Elementals waste time assigning a new pearl to Sean when they could just reuse Azurite's one?" Pad said casually, unfazed by the whole situation. "They probably just rejuvenated her so that her past wouldn't interfere in her treatment of Sean. That's what they do when a pearl's owner gets shattered, anyway... they rejuvenate her and reassign her. I actually feel embarrassed I hadn't thought of this before."

"It could have surely spared us from a lot of trouble... ugh, what a bummer." Gold said as she sat down in the chair and started using the screen to fix the cameras.

"B-but then I... h-have to go and tell M-Marine and Olive everything! And then... and then... we have to leave. W-we have to find a way to r-rescue Dad from the H-Humans' Area... and then e-everything will be fine a-again. We'll all go to Earth... and live there..."

Before any of the petalites could say anything else, the sound of the metal door being slammed against the wall echoed across the whole room, making Sean jump and let out a loud gasp. Standing right on the doorway was a tall hessonite; seeing her made Sean remember when she had entered the room previously, and he finally recognized the type of Gem that the voice belonged to. At first she was glaring at the petalites, but when she noticed Sean's presence in the room, her gaze became confused.

"I demand to know what's going on _right now_ ," she said firmly, lifting a clenched fist at them all. Sean couldn't tell if she had been informed of his earlier escape; if she did, nothing they said would be able to save them. "Why haven't you three finished fixing my surveilance cameras? And why is the hybrid here?"

If she had known about it, she would probably have stated it and actually done something; this filled Sean with a wave of tranquility. All they needed to do was come up with an excuse now. 

"W-we can explain! My C-Commander!" Grassy squealed, clumsily bowing to the hessonite.

"Well then, _start explaining_. I'm waiting."

"Look, the t-thing is... t-this is what happened, uh, we..."

"I-I did it!" Sean exclaimed, making everyone stare at him. Embarrassed by all his abrupt argument and the attention, intimidating by the hessonite's side and worrying by the wide-eyed petalites' side, Sean blushed and looked away. "B-but, uh... I-I didn't do it on p-purpose...?"

"What are you blabbering about?" the hessonite asked.

"T-the thing is... um... I-I was using my tablet, when suddenly, a weird screen appeared! Then I clicked on it, and... the tablet stopped working! I thought I should see a Commander about this, so I came here, and the petalites told me I probably ended up accidentally messing with the cameras!"

"Yeah! That's exactly what happened!"

The hessonite turned back to the petalites. "Did you finish fixing my cameras?"

"Yes!" Gold said.

"Then _leave_."

Sean and the petalites silently left the room. Once they were all finally out, the boy let out a sigh of relief.

"Man, that was crazy... I'm so glad I was able to come up with a believable excuse in time..."

"'Believable'? I'm sorry, Sean, but it was clear she didn't believe that at all... it doesn't even make sense! She just cared about having her cameras fixed, that's all." Pad corrected him.

"O-okay... what matters is that we managed to get away safely. S-so now I'm going to talk to Marine and Olive, then we'll get my Dad, and then we'll come back for you guys and we'll all leave together. You can just stay in that room where we were talking at... is that alright?"

"Alright, we're going then! Good luck, Sean, and try not to leave us waiting for long!" Grassy said before all three of them left.

Still using the tactic of taking the less crowded corridors and making himself not noticeable, Sean was able to get back to his room after some time. As soon as he came inside, he turned to close the door, and was able to catch the glimpse of Marine and Olive coming towards him.

"Sean, there you are... you're finally back, I'm so glad to see you're safe!" Marine said before wrapping her arms around him.

"So, how did it go? Did you find everything you needed?" Olive asked afterwards.

"Yeah..." Sean said simply, then went to sit down in his bed. Trying to find a way to tell them what he had just discovered was hard. "The petalites helped me, and we got into the files of one of the Commanders... and I found out who is my Mom's old pearl."

"Great! Do you know where she is, then? We could go get her right now!"

Sean swallowed. "There's no need to... she's already here."

It took them a moment to realize the implications of what Sean had just said. Olive jerked her head towards Marine, looking like her eyes were going to pop out of their place; Marine didn't look any less shocked, having gasped and put her hands on the sides of her face.

"Hold on a minute! Sean, you're kidding, right? There's just no way..." Olive started before trailing off.

"I-I also didn't believe it at first, but... it seems like it..."

Marine still hadn't said a word. All she did was bring her shaking hands out of her head, to bring them to the gem on her navel after. The same place as Sean's. The same place as azurite's.

"I had seen her on the dreams, but... I-I didn't even recognize her! You just... looked so different. I mean, your clothes..." Sean stammered. None of them knew the right thing to say in that situation.

Marine finally opened her mouth. "I... remember now."

"You do?! So it's really true!" Olive exclaimed. "This is crazy!"

Sean got up from his bed and walked towards them.

"Then... can you tell me about her? I-I mean, I... wanted to know more. I wanted to understand."

All of them sat down right there, on the floor, so that Marine could start telling everything. 

"My memories are still blurry and coming back slowly, but... if there's anything I remember about Azurite, it's that she was prone to many kinds of... mood swings. Everything would just be calm, but then she would suddenly have a fit of laughter, or burst into tears, or sometimes even... break everything around her just in pure anger."

Her words made Sean flinch as he remembered the dreams he had had about those reactions.

"Of course, I was always there to try and take care of everything... I had to, but I also did it because I wanted to. I did my best to comfort her and make her happy... but it didn't always work, because the cause of her frustration was her wish to become a Commander or Administrator. She felt like the Elementals had stolen her old life away from her, so she just wanted to have some power. And she only got better when she met a human... your father, Sean."

"And that's how Sean came to exist?" Olive said quietly.

"Sean, she... wasn't a bad person. I don't think she was... she just had some problems and made a few bad decisions."

Sean nodded. "Yeah... I think so, too. I went into her room earlier.. and I said I didn't blame her for anything that happened. It's true. I'm still a little in shock, but... I'm fine. We can talk about this later, now... we need to get my Dad and get out of here."

"How are we going to do this, though? I mean, Ametrine is furious at you... and even if she wasn't, it's not like you can actually take a human out of the Humans' Area."

Sean gave them a smile. "Don't worry. I know exactly what to do."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Thankfully, though, he didn't need to think as the petalites did this for him and all three simultaneously shoved him under the table before he could be seen" proof that these three all share the same brain cells  
> Hold on, what? I should be talking about the reveal instead of making jokes! It felt good to let it out honestly... I had been waiting for this moment since I started writing this story. Now we'll have another "wow big shocking" moment before the end and I can't wait... no spoilers tho ;)


	9. Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sean meets his father again.

"Is this the place?"

Sean looked down at the map he was holding and then to the sides. Everything matched. He looked up to Marine and Olive and nodded his head, handing the map to Marine.

"I think so. Let me see if I can come in." Sean put his hand over the detector, and with his heart beating fast, pushed the door. To his relief, it opened. "Okay, let's go!"

All three of them ran inside and closed the door. The room was not as big as any of the Elementals' personal chambers, and it was mostly occupied by multiple freezers by each other's sides against the wall. Between two tables in front of him, Sean saw what he was looking for: a hole covered by a lid with a lever on its side.

"There it is! I think that's where they put the food!" Sean exclaimed, pointing at it.

He knelt down near it, and from a closer perspective, he saw there was a small keyhole on the middle of the lid. Trying to forcefully pry it open turned out to be useless; it seemed like they would really need that key, just like how Sean had needed that card to unlock the files. Sean turned for Marine and Olive for help; the former smiled awkwardly, and the latter shrugged.

"Ugh, why would they even put a key there? Just to make our job harder than it needs to be?" Olive said.

"Of course not! You know how certain Gems are... I don't doubt some of them would keep putting... inadequate items there to deliver to the humans, which could be dangerous." Marine replied. "That's why only authorized personnel can open it."

The last sentence made Sean slouch in disappointment. "So that means we can't open it? H-how are we going to do this?"

"We... we, u-uh..." Marine stuttered, glancing away.

Olive took her sword out of her gem casually. "We open it _by force_ , that's what we do."

Sean and Marine were about to scream at her to stop, but Olive didn't wait for that and stabbed the blade into the lid on the wall, making a cracking noise as it fell apart, revealing a dark hole. With his hands on his head, Sean slowly opened his eyes, only to see everything was fine.

"W-woah, I... didn't know we could do that, ha! I thought there would be flashing red lights and loud siren sounds... I guess they didn't plan for something like this to happen." he said.

"Yeah. So, it's open, what now?"

"Now I go inside and when I'm on the end, I'll tell you to push the lever! Then I'll be inside, I'll free Dad, and then meet you guys where the escape ships are. I marked the room where the petalites are on the map, so after you leave this place, you have to go and get them!"

"Alright. Then go in there, and whenever you need the lever, just tell us."

He nodded and looked into the hole; it was a very short, narrow, and overall _small_ tunnel Sean had never imagined he'd have to go inside. The size made sense, as it had been made to transport food and not an actual person, but it was still Sean's only hope to go inside the Humans' Area considering his "fugitive" status without being seen, and a possible escape route in case the door ended up unavailable. 

Taking a deep breath, Sean looked up at them with serious confidence. "I'm ready."

"Good luck, Sean... and _be careful_! I can't stress that enough... you're putting yourself in so much danger, at least try not getting hurt!" Marine said.

"I will... don't worry!"

Sean started climbing into the hole, and after some time finally managed to get his entire body inside, which was enough of a win to make him sigh in relief. The roof was too low for Sean to be able to at least crawl with his hands and knees (he realized that the hard way), so he had to stay with his chest against the conveyor belt that covered the ground, dragging his body across the long tunnel. At least it didn't have any turns, those would be the worst.

When he finally reached the end, Sean had to hold himself not to cry happy tears. He made sure to curl his body into a ball as tiny as possible right in the end, on the spot where the conveyor belt stopped and the ground was just a lid, the only thing separating him from the Humans' Area.

"Okay, I'm here! You can pull the lever now!" Sean hollered to Marine and Olive outside, forming a cup around his mouth with his hands. 

Soon later, Sean saw the conveyor belt starting to run, and then the ground beneath him vanished. Even though it was to be expected, Sean's heart skipped a beat and he started to scream as he fell, until his back hit something solid and an "oof" sound escaped his lips. As the boy recovered from the blow, he opened his eyes to see the blue lid open, hanging from the "sky", right before it closed. The projection of the roof was light blue with a few clouds, and after Sean got up and turned around, he saw a light ball that was supposed to simulate the sun; the roof kept gradually getting taller the further one walked, reaching its peak at the part above the sea.

Sean looked around to see the area filled with humans, like always. To match the tropical environment they were in, they all wore short outfits with cleavages, and were either barefoot or wearing sandals made of wood and strings that they themselves had put together. Men, women, and children wore flowers on their hair and an improvised type of earrings that had either rocks or shells on the end. Sean shook his head; he should stop looking at these humans' style of clothing and actually look for his father. As if on cue, he saw someone approaching his side and turned around to see Finn smiling at him.

"Dad!" Sean gasped, before throwing his body against Finn's chest in a hug.

"Hey, hey there, Sean... I'm here. It's okay." Finn said while caressing Sean's hair. "I'm glad to see you again. How have things been going?"

Sean took a step backwards and wiped away a single tear he shed. "So much stuff happened since the last time we talked... I want to tell you everything. It's really important, so... can we go somewhere private?"

"Sure! I think I know a good place for that."

Sean followed Finn away from the beach part and into the forest part; they went through trees and bushes for a while before they finally reached one of the corners of the room, where there was a little wooden hut. Finn opened the door and both of them came inside, sitting down on the ground.

"So... what did you want to talk about?"

They spent several minutes inside, while Sean did all the talking and Finn just listened. It was good for Sean to finally disclose everything that had been happening, state it all out loud; by the end of the speech, everything was way lighter and clearer on his mind.

"Oh, wow, that's... surely a lot. I don't even know what to say!" Finn said, putting his hands on the sides of his head. "But what I have to say doesn't matter right now... how about _you_ , Sean? How are you dealing with all this? Are you alright?"

"I think... I'm taking it well. But we can't think about me now, we have to get out of here! I have a plan... I put one together with everything I read about the Humans' Area when Marine and Olive gave me the tablet so I could learn about the Elementals' experiments," Sean started. "The thing about this place is that the Elementals did everything they could to keep it safe for the humans. They made sure that even the deepest part of the sea was shallow enough so that nobody would drown... they are no sharp or big rocks anybody could injure themselves with... there are no high spots people could fall off from, and much more. But if any of these mechanisms failed and it was serious enough, they would be forced to come inside here, and it'd be chaotic enough to give us a chance to escape!"

"I guess so. But you just said it yourself... they thought of everything to keep the humans safe. So how can we do something?"

"Okay, so here's what I thought of, first we have to find--"

Interrupting Sean mid-sentence, the door of the shack was open, and on the doorway stood a young man who was smiling but looked surprised to see them there. He had bronzed skin, probably because of the influence of the environment, since even though it wasn't a real tropical island, the Elementals sure made it feel like one (or at least what Sean thought one was like), large curly black hair and equally dark eyes with thick eyebrows above them. The clothes he wore were of a similar style as everyone else's, being a sleeveless brown top with a V cleavage on the middle and white pants.

"Oh! I didn't know you were there! Hello!" he exclaimed. Sean smiled to him despite the shock.

"Uh, hey there... Adam? That's you, right?" Finn replied, before looking away and whispering, "This is just like school... I just want to escape and I don't know anybody's name..."

"Yes, that's right!" Adam exclaimed while clapping his hands, looking delighted that Finn knew his name.

"Oh. Nice. I don't know if you know, but I'm Finn, and this is my son Sean..."

"Hi!" Sean chirped.

"Hello, Finn, hello, Sean!" Adam said, despite having already said hello before. "What are you doing?"

Sean looked around him awkwardly. "S-sitting! And talking..."

To their surprise, Adam sat down too. "Talking, how nice! I like talking. What were you talking about?"

Sean and Finn gave each other nervous glances. 

"Uh... I-I'm not sure if I can say, b-because... it's a secret." Sean said as nicely as he could.

Adam laughed. "Don't worry! I'm really good at secrets, I promise I won't tell anyone else!"

"I-I guess... it's o-okay, then!" Sean said, with an anxious smile. "I just, um... wanted to look for some specific kind of rock. They're these rough black ones... h-have you ever seen them?"

"That sounds so fun, Sean! I don't know if I know them, but I want to help you and Finn find them!" Adam said happily. "I know I said I wasn't going to tell anyone, but can I tell just one other person? So we can all help together!"

"If it's just one more person... I-I guess it's fine."

"Alright, great! I'll be right back!"

Adam got up and ran out of the cabin, leaving Sean and Finn alone once again. Sean turned his head back to his father's direction and looked at him with concern.

"I-I didn't want to get any of the h-humans involved in this... I don't want to get them in t-trouble. But I also didn't want to make him sad, he seemed so nice... m-maybe we can help him and his f-friend, too!" Sean said.

"I don't know... maybe."

Soon after, Adam came back with a smiling young woman. She had fair skin and long, golden hair adorned with a flower with bangs and green eyes, and was wearing a short-sleeved white shirt with cleavage and a blue skirt. Sean also noticed she was wearing some of the earrings the humans made, and hers had shells on them.

"This is my friend Megan! She came to help." Adam said.

"Hello, Finn! Hello, Sean!" Megan waved to them. "Let's look for some rocks together, this will be fun! If we find any, we'll give them to you!"

"Okay, thank you! Let's search then..."

Sean and Finn stayed to look where they already were, and Adam and Megan went another way. Not even five minutes had passed when Sean started hearing the humans' excited screams for him as they ran back.

"Sean! Finn! We found the rocks you wanted!" Megan exclaimed while giggling.

"Many of them! You'll love them!" said Adam, opening his palms to reveal many different kinds of rocks.

Sean awkwardly chuckled as he tried to think of the most polite way to refuse. "O-oh, no, g-guys... those aren't the ones I need. It's not just any rock... they're all black and have some pointy parts. Did you find any of these?"

"Oooh! We'll go look for these ones then, Sean!" 

They ran away together once again as the boy stared. Finn put his hand over Sean's shoulder.

"No offense, but I don't think we should expect anything out of them and just focus on our own work, kiddo..." he said.

"Y-yeah, I think you're right..."

The two continued to look for the rocks for a while, until Sean finally found two.

"Here, we have two! That's what I wanted!" he said. "Okay, now we need some leaves and sticks... this won't be hard to find."

Finn and Sean then put everything around them together in a small stack, with the boy still holding the rocks on each hand.

"So, what now?" Finn asked.

"Now... we're going to make a little cover. Like this."

Sean grabbed two sticks and impaled them on the ground, each one of them on a side of the stack of dry leaves and wood they had made. Then he took one of the large, fallen leaves on the ground and placed it over everything, being held by the two sticks.

"You'll understand all of this soon," Sean said, noticing his father's confusion. "Alright, now... let's just hope I'll have some luck."

Taking a deep breath, Sean brought the rocks close to the stack and smashed them against each other, flinching away. Nothing happened except the collision sound. Sean tried again, rubbing them more against each other this time, and noticed the glimpse of a flame; he already knew what he had to do. After rubbing them against each other more, once again he made them hit each other, and when he noticed, there was fire on their surface.

"It worked!" Sean exclaimed with a laugh.

"W-woah, be careful there, kiddo! Don't end up burning yourself!" Finn said worriedly.

"Don't worry, I won't! Here..." Sean put the rocks closer to the leaves and sticks, creating a small campire, before putting out the rocks and throwing them away. "Okay, now prepare yourself! Cover your head!"

"Cover my--"

Water started to drop from the sky, but not like rain; like multiple hoses at maximum potential. It took only seconds for Sean and Finn to find themselves drenched, so they got up immediately.

"I put the big leaf covering the fire so the water won't put it out! This way, the Elementals will be forced to come inside, and the door will be open for us!" Sean told Finn.

"Oh, that's pretty smart! But when are they coming? I think things are getting a little chaotic here..."

They looked forwards to see desperate humans screaming and running everywhere, confused by the violent water jets above their heads; Sean couldn't help but feel terribly bad for them, as he scanned the are in search for Adam and Megan. Startling everyone inside the room, the doors were burst open, and Sean gasped but silenced himself upon seeing Ametrine, alongside many tall guards, coming inside.

She started pointing to the guards and commanding them. "You two, stay at the door and make sure none of these humans leave! The rest of you, help me contain them and find the fire!"

Sean gripped Finn's hand unconsciously and pulled him away. "W-we have to go... r-right now! Through the food tunnel, the door is b-blocked!"

"But how are we going to get up there?!"

"D-don't worry, I-I'll do something!"

The two ran to where the food was delivered, right under the tunnel, trying their best to ignore the scenes of the Gems grabbing and hitting the scared humans. Sean was terrified upon seeing the lid was closed; how would they leave if it was closed, and if they didn't leave, they would get in trouble, all Sean wanted to do was leave! In the next second, Sean was surprised to feel his hand holding something, and even more when he realized it was his rod.

There was no time to lose. Sean jumped and hit the tip of his rod against the lid with all the strength he could muster, breaking and opening it. He then jumped as high as he could, grabbed the hole and pulled himself inside, looking down at Finn.

"Sean, I don't think I can jump _that_ high!"

"It's okay! Here!"

Sean shapeshifted his arms to make them longer, then grabbed his father and pulled him inside the tunnel too, just in front of him.

"W-wow... we really d-did it! We're... s-safe now!" Sean said. "Let's... l-leave and meet the Gems."

"Alright, then... you lead the way, Sean."

So the two of them continued to crawl on the tunnel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh god pyromaniac sean is canon... who could imagine it  
> also adam and megan were such cinnamon rolls in the little time they had. i just wanted to write some humans and show how mostly everyone in the humans' area is like!


	10. Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sean and his friends escape, at last.

They were out.

Not out of the ship yet, but at least they were out of the Humans' Area. Almost out of breath, Sean jerked his head towards his father and grabbed his hand, pulling him through the corridors.

"H-hey, Sean, hold on! I don't think I can run as fast as you!" Finn protested. Not to mention the two of them were still wet because of the water of the fire detectors, so the slippy floor made everything worse.

Sean's body came to a halt right after he said that, and after he frantically looked around to see if there was anyone coming, the boy picked his father up almost effortlessly, and continued running with him on his arms. They were lucky that the corridors were almost empty, save for one Gem or another, who was usually too dazed by their presence to actually try and stop them. It was a relief when they finally reached the room of the ships. Sean put Finn on the ground and opened the door, his heart beating faster than it should as multiple scenarios of them failing went through his mind.

"Guys! Are you--" he started, but stopped upon seeing they were all fine and breathed in relief before taking a closer look at the scene.

Olive, Marine, and the petalites were all reunited in one place, seemingly having been talked before Sean and Finn had arrived. He couldn't help but notice that the petalites looked a little vexed while Marine was looking away from them in annoyance; Olive didn't seem to be interested in whatever discuss they were having, just leaning on the cable of her sword. When Sean took a step inside, he noticed two gemstones engulfed in green bubbles.

"Oh, Sean, good thing you arrived!" Olive exclaimed, approaching him and Finn, and smiling to them. "And nice to meet you, Finn."

"Nice to meet you too! You're... Olive, right? Sean told me a lot about you and Marine, so it doesn't even feel like the first time I see you!"

Olive laughed and ruffled Sean's hair. "Sean's a good kid! And I'm sure we'll get along well."

Marine then marched towards them followed closely by the petalites, with a much more angry expression than before. "I'm glad you're safe, Sean! But can you _please_ tell your friends that it is not a lie that I was the one who taught you everything you know?!"

"Well, it is a lie. I taught him how to defend himself." Olive remarked.

"Yes, yes. I'm talking about intellectual knowledge, Olive!" Marine said, before noticing Finn and blushing in shame. "Oh. I... didn't see you there. You must be Finn."

"Yes, that's... right. Uh, thank you for teaching Sean all the intellectual knowledge he knows... I guess?"

"B-but that makes no sense! Yes, Sean, before you say anything, I know... you're all about the whole 'all Gems are equal and there's nothing a type of Gem can do that another can't', but just..." Pad started, gesticulating exaggeratedly as she stumbled on her words. "...just how would a pearl have enough knowledge for herself, much less to pass it on to someone else?"

"Marine is very intelligent! Even more than me... she's been doing a great job at explaining everything to me since I was very young. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't know most stuff I know today!" Sean said, watching as Marine smiled to him. "But we can talk about everything later... now, we need to get a ship and escape!"

Everyone agreed and they started looking at the ships to choose one. There wasn't really much difference between them because all they would use it for was driving to Earth, and that was a basic function, so any would suffice and hopefully, they wouldn't need to use any of the advanced options during their journey. In the end, they settled for a rather large red one that had rocket propellants in the end and a blade in the front to dig (Sean had thought it was cool and the others agreed).

They all got inside and happily noted it had a nice interior as well, with benches attached to the walls that they could sit, or in Sean and Finn's cases, even sleep on. Sean found himself sleeping and turning away at the sight of a dooron the very back, and silently wished he would not have to go inside one of those rooms ever again and feel like he was being boiled alive. He just sat down in one of the benches, with Finn by his side and Marine and Olive on the one in front of them, the petalites going to manage the dashboard.

"Hey, this is just like that mission three years ago, right?" Sean remarked, feeling a grin start to show on his face. It quickly faded. "Except I don't have a sleeping bag or a tablet... or _food_! What are Dad and I going to eat?!"

"Oh, you don't need to worry about any of that, Sean! When you went to the Humans' Area, we quickly passed by your room and I brought the most important things for you, including food. They're all stored in my gem," Marine said and touched her gem. "If you need anything, just tell me."

Olive chuckled. "Of course she'd think of that. And I'm sure that by 'the most important stuff', she means everything in the room."

In response, Marine crossed her eyes and looked away. "Not _everything_! I only took his spare clothes, pajamas, soaps and shampoos, combs, toothbrushes, many food and water reserves... oh, and also his comic books."

"You brought my comics?! That's great, thank you! It'd be terrible to leave everything behind... I'll read them when I get bored."

Gold turned away from the dashboard to look at them. "Alright, we're done preparing the ship and setting the coordinates to Earth... prepare yourselves for take off."

Sean's excitement was almost immensurable now, and he couldn't help but run to the windows when he felt the ship move the slightest bit. He let out a laugh when the sight was filled with the dark immensity of space, pressing his hands and face against the glass to admire it even more. They were flying slowly, and even though Sean wanted to get to Earth more than anything, he didn't find himself bothered by that. For now, just the fact that they were out of the Elementals' ship was enough.

"Wow, just... look at the size of that thing." said Finn a few minutes after they had left, pointing at the Elementals' ship that was visible in a mirror. "It's like a mansion but in the middle of space."

"I don't have the first idea what a mansion is, but you're right, it's gigantic." Olive agreed.

"Most of them are about that size, some even much bigger. They need many rooms for all their experiments, personal chambers, offices... and much more." Marine explained. "They've existed for thousands of years, even before the Rebellion, and right now as we speak, many others are probably being built. Many of them are just scattered through space."

Finn swallowed. "And to think I've spent the past years trapped in this place... most of the people inside of that place have no diea about any of this. They seriously think that area is everything there is to the world, but... it's just one in hundreds. That's crazy."

Sean went back to where they were and sat down next to his father. "I read about the Humans' Area... in the newer ships, they usually capture humans from Earth to make them live there. Then, the time passes, and eventually, their descendants are just... like that. The only thing they know is that place."

"Yikes..." Finn muttered.

"But we'll never have to go through any of that anymore... and when we arrive, we could even try to find ways to help other victims of the Elementals!" Sean said. "So, Dad... what are we going to do when we get on Earth?"

"Ah, yeah, I guess I'm the only one here who has a proper idea of how things work there..." Finn paused for some seconds to think. "Well, I guess that the Earth probably changed a lot since I was last there... it's been, what, 18 years? I probably missed out on a lot..."

"Only 18 years? That's nothing! 18 years was the amount of time I spent waiting for rescue after I got stranded on a planet in a mission... and that was over 200 years ago!" Pad exclaimed, with laughter. Finn's eyes widened in a mix of shock and pity for her, while Sean was fazed but not surprised.

"You're right, 18 years is barely anything... to a Gem!" Grassy retorted while glaring daggers at her comrade. "Humans aren't like us Gems. Their time is limited! The average human lifespan in Earth is about 80 years... which isn't that much, but taking this proportion into matter, 18 years would be a lot!"

Gold gave Grassy a suspicious look. "Since when did you get so knowledgeable about humans?"

Grassy blushed and looked away, fists clenched. "Since before our mission with Sean, three years ago."

"Aww! So you really wanted to become friends, even before we met!"

"Uh... anyway, Finn, you were saying...?" Marine said, staring at him.

"Ah, right! If things still work the way I think, then I should first try to get a job so I can earn money. Then we can use that money to buy a house and everything we need."

"Alright, I get it. But what's this money thing you're talking about?" Olive asked.

"Wait... you guys don't know what money is? Like... currency?" Finn stared at their confused faces, and that's when he realized just how different humans and Gems were, and just how much basic stuff he would have to explain. "That's fine. Money is a thing that you earn when you work... and then you can trade it for basically anything you want."

Hearing that, Grassy turned to them with a shocked expression. "Hold on, did I hear that right? In Earth, you can work _and_ you gain a reward for your work?! We've been missing out on this for so long! I can't believe this! I'm so livid right now I could turn this ship back around and shoot the Elementals' ship until it explodes!"

"H-hold on, calm down! We can't do that!" Sean exclaimed.

"That's... how it works in Earth. At least how it used to work when I lived there..." Finn said, scratching the back of his head. 

"And... what kinds of jobs are there?" Marine asked. "Tell me everything about it."

Out of all of them, Marine seemed to be the one who was interested the most, at least in a serious way. Sean was just curious and excited about everything, Olive was only asking questions ocasionally whenever she was confused about a human term, and the petalites were quiet unless the subjcet concerned them. After some more minutes of chit-chat, Sean turned to the dashboard just enough to catch the three glancing at them, and right when they noticed he was looking, they turned back around and tried to hide what had just happened.

"Uh, excuse me, I'll be right back." Sean said and got up before walking over to where the petalites were. "Hey, guys. How's everything going?"

"Oh, I'm glad you asked, Sean!" Pad nearly screamed as she turned on the swivel chair of the commander of the ship. She was sitting with her legs crossed, and actually smiling. "Everything has been running perfectly. Naturally, this was just to be expected... I'm the one driving the ship, after all!"

Gold gave her a glare, making Sean start to regret asking the question. "Don't start bragging about it. You're not the only one doing it... I'm analyzing the sensor to make sure we take the best route and don't collapse into anything harmful!" She pointed to a screen on the dashboard showing many red dots on it.

"That's nothing compared to what I do! I'm here ready to press any buttons we need!" Grassy boasted, pointing to herself with her thumb. "If we need to escape from a ship of the Elementals, I could just activate hyperspeed with the yellow button and get us out immediately. And if the ship were in front of us, I could just press the blue button to shoot at it! And if those two failed, I could just press the green button to get us a fresh escape pod to get us out of here, in the direction of our coordinates!"

Grassy pointed to some numbers on a screen, apparently the coordinates of the place on Earth they were going to. Sean squinted his eyes at the sight and nodded after he memorized it; it could be important later. He then gave the angry Gems a comforting smile that succeeded in calming them down at least a little.

"Guys, we don't need to argue about whose function is the most important. Actually, all of you three are important... we wouldn't be able to do this if just _one_ of you weren't working!"

"...Elaborate."

"Well, think with me here... if there was nobody driving the ship, we wouldn't be able to get anywhere. We also wouldn't be able to do this properly if we didn't know what the best route was, because we could end up lost! And if we didn't have someone to press the safety buttons, everything would be lost if we ran into trouble!"

The three looked at each other before Pad spoke again. "You're right. How could we have been so blind as to diminish any of the functions of the ship? They wouldn't be there if they were useless! Once again you enlighten us with the truth, Sean..."

"N-no need to t-thank me!" Sean said hurriedly before they decided to swear servitude to him. "A-actually, I... I came here to invite you guys to join me, Dad, Marine, and Olive. We're having so much fun together, so I don't think it's fair for you to just stay here and work. Unless you want to, of course."

"Go there and join you?" Gold repeated, looking down at the sensor screen with guilt.

"But... we can't leave our duties..." Grassy said, avoiding his gaze.

"Hey, it's fine... we have the autopilot, don't we? Everything will be okay. Remember... you're not the Elementals' slaves anymore. You can do whatever you want now... you're free to do whatever you want with your life, and you should be happy. We'll help you."

Suddenly there was a huge smile on Grassy's face as she took a long step away from the buttons on the dashboard. "Alright! I'll do that then, thanks, Sean!" She ran to the benches where everyone was sitting and jumped to sit down next to Marine, to her chagrin. "Hello, pearl, hello, soldier, hello, human!"

Seeing what her comrade had just done, Gold stared at the sensor screen, then glanced to where everyone else was and repeated this a few times before taking a deep breath and walking towards them too. Sean stared at Pad gently, as she clung to the chair looking like she was about to cry.

"Can... c-can I bring my chair?" she asked in an almost inaudible tone. "It's the last remaining shreds of power that I have..."

"Sure, you can! Uh, we just need to find a way to take it out without damaging the ship..." Sean said as he stared at the point where the chair connected to the floor.

"Oh, it's detachable." Pad deadpanned, before getting out and pressing a button that practically ejected the chair into Sean's arms. This threw the boy off-balance for a minute, but he was soon able to make himself carry the chair and place it near one of the benches as Pad turned auto-pilot on.

Soon, all of them were together, talking. The Gems laughed about weird human practices Sean and Finn told them about, and in turn, the two laughed about how oblivious they were to some things that were just common sense to humans (mostly Finn, because Sean didn't know Earth that well, yet). This overjoyed Sean not just because of the fun he was having, but for the thought of it; after the emotional mess that the past days had been, he had to admit he missed having heartfelt moments like these. Especially now that all his friends were reunited.

"Wow, I just... can't believe we're really doing this," Sean said and laughed. "I mean, I know we are, but... it still hasn't clicked, you know? Escaping just seems... insane, even though I've helped Gems escape in the past. I guess I never thought about _me_ being in their place... I think about them a lot. But this still feels amazing... if it's another one of my dreams, I don't want anyone to wake me up!"

"Rest assured, kiddo... it's not a dream. It's weird for me too, after so many time in that place... I mean, we're all diving into the unknown here. You all more than me, since you've never been to Earth... I guess we'll only realize how real it is when we get there." said Finn.

Marine grinned and lifted up her finger. "I've studied the Earth's geography before!"

"I don't know anything about it other than what you told me, but I know for a fact that humans also have their own weapons, even swords... so I guess I like humans, too." Olive added.

"Um, I think that was a long time ago... I don't think they fight with swords anymore. At least not usually." Sean said.

"Oh. Well, but if they did it in the past, that means they can still do it! The newer ones just need somebody to teach them!" she said. Sean giggled, but Finn gave her a worried stare.

"I hope everything will be fine when we arrive... I can't wait to see everything! The grass, the blue sky, the sun... the humans! I want to meet many humans, get to know them, and befriend them!"

"That's nice, but, hey..." Gold started, lifting a pointing finger towards the windows in front of the dashboard. "Isn't that... one of the Elementals' ships?"

The words made all of them jerk their heads in the direction, to be met with the terrifying sight of another ship, slightly bigger than theirs; it seemed rather close, too. Or rather, it was approaching them. A screen on one of the walls lit up to a cyan color with a lighter line on the middle, seeming like the heartbeat monitor Sean had seen when he was brought for the testing.

"H-hey, what does that mean?" Sean asked, signaling to the screen with worry.

"They're trying to contact us! Probably to check if we're an authorized ship, which we aren't! Oh my stars, what do we do!" Pad exclaimed and grabbed her head in panic.

"The buttons! Let's run away!" Grassy suggested and jumped out of her seat to go back to the buttons part on the dashboard, followed by Sean. 

She pressed the yellow button, and the speed of the ship increased so drastically Sean would have fallen down on his back if he hadn't grabbed onto the board. It was still an uncomfortable experience, as he could feel himself being pulled backwards, making him fear his clothes and hair would be ripped out of his body; in the end it only lasted a few seconds before everything went back to normal, and Sean was able to relax his grip on the board and reopen his eyes.

"It's... over?" he asked in confusion.

Grassy nodded. "It only lasts a few seconds, the exact time we'd need to foil our chasers."

When they were all about to let themselves finally relax, the other ship popped up right in front of them, which amde Sean cry out on alarm. Grassy was just as shocked as he was.

"...Or not... if they have a more efficient hyperseed mode!" she said. "We'll have to shoot their cannons out to prevent them from attacking us!"

But it seemed like the other ship either thought or acted faster, as laser beams were blasted out of all its four cannons. when they hit their target, the entire ship shook and the lights flashed red for a moment, making everyone inside scream. Gold and Pad went to join Sean and Grassy and opened a screen on the dashboard, showing a drawn model of their ship; most parts of it looked gray like the screen around it, but four parts on the front and bac were red.

" _They_ shot out our cannons! What now?!" Gold shrieked.

"Uh... it'll be super terrible and cramped, so that's why I was avoiding it until now, but it seems there's no choice..." Grassy slammed her palm against the green button. "Let's use the escape pod, everyone!"

The floor opened in a circular form in the center of the room, rising a pod with its door already open. They were all about to run inside when there was a loud banging noise of metal being compressed summed up with the ship shaking again, and only by looking outside through the windows in the walls they were able to see claws holding it. Coming from the ship in front of them. Then it started pulling them towards it.

"They're going to capture us! Hurry, we must leave right now!" Pad said.

All of them went inside the pod, and it looked just as cramped as Grassy had described it to be. But when Sean was about to get inside, the ship was forcefully steered to the side, causing the boy to slip and fall against a corner; when he was about to get up and go inside, the escape pod's doors ended up colsing by themselves, and it disappeared just after.

"Noooo!" Sean screamed, trying to get up, tears starting to form.

There was nothing he could do but accept what was coming when the door opened and the Elementals marched inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well rip sean. NEXT CHAPTER IS GOING TO BE INTENSE. I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR IT FOR A LONG TIME--


	11. Interloper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sean's fate changes. Again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've been waiting so much for this momentttt

The grip on his arms was so tight Sean was scared they were going to end up crushed. There were two topazes by his side, each one restraining him by one arm, and because of their huge difference in size, he was being lifted in the air, which somehow made the entire situation more uncomfortable. At least it didn't last long, because when they stopped in front of the captain's chair, they let go of him, and Sean fell on the ground with an "oof". The chair then spun around, revealing a tall yellow Gem with short spiky hair and a silver outfit sitting on it. Sean gave her a nervous smile, but her look was of disgust.

" _That's_ what was on that ship? Impossible. No human would have the mental capacities of stealing a ship, using it to escape, or even piloting it without crashing into something." she said, waving her hand, and chuckled in the end. "Are you sure there weren't Gems in there?"

"U-um, actually--" Sean started before he was interrupted.

"Soon after we grappled that ship, I saw a escape pod being released... they must have used it to escape, Captain Scapolite." said a nephrite by her side.

Scapolite, the yellow Gem that seemed to be the one leading the mission, let out a loud sigh. "Of course, you let them escape! This mission hasn't even started and I'm already getting frustrated. Next time the Commanders make me go through this, I'll ask for a more competent team and for a sapphire to accompany me. This could have been avoided if they had just done as I wanted..."

"So, what should we do about the human?"

"Oh, just leave it there. I don't want to waste time going back to put it in the Humans' Area, just do nothing and it'll die in some time." Scapolite shrugged and started to turn back around.

"H-hold on! I may look like it, but I'm not an ordinary human!" he protested, before lifting off his shirt to show his round gem. "I'm actually... half-Gem and half-human. Like, a hybrid!"

The sight made Scapolite's eyes widen in a noticeably. Slowly, making Sean dread every following second, she got up from her chair and knelt in front of him; despite how uncomfortable and scary it was, Sean didn't move and continued to hold his shirt up as Scapolite touched it and the skin around it.

"Fascinating," was what she said after she was done and stood up again. 

"H-had you heard of me b-before?"

"If I _ever_ heard of you? Ha! I don't think there's a single Gem in the Elementals who hasn't heard of you... I'd say you're the most interesting accidental experiment that's ever been done!" she said, a grin beginning to form on her mouth. "Yes, you're valuable. If I brought you back, I'd be rewarded handsomely... maybe I'd finally get my own pearl! Or better, a worthy title! This is it... we're going back."

"Going back? Y-you mean... going back to the Elementals' ship?!"

She simply ignored him and sat back on her chair. But right before turning around and changing the course of the ship, she looked up at the topazes. "Make sure it doesn't try to struggle. You don't need to use much strength, its body seems to be organic... just keep him out of trouble."

Before Sean knew, he was grabbed by the arms and lifted off the ground again, a position in which he had to stay until they got to the ship. From the little Sean could see through the window near him, it didn't seem to be the ship he was raised in; there were a few black details on the wings that his didn't have. All that just made the situation worse. He was going to a ship he had never been in before with Gems that didn't know him, so his chances of appealing to them were minimum, if not inexistent, and he had no idea what was going to happen to him.

Simply put, the situation was terrifying, and no matter how much he tried, Sean was unable of coming up with something to save himself. All the odds were against him and all he could do was wait quietly and try to ignore the sense of horror on his stomach and throat. The ship they were in landed inside the mother ship, a mere sand grain compared to the latter; when it touched the ground, the doors were instantly open.

Scapolite got up from her seat and started walking to the exit. "Follow me with the hybrid."

The topazes carrying Sean obeyed the order without question, the boy shaking on their grip as they marched behind Scapolite. During the walk, Sean noticed that not only the exterior of that ship was different than the one he grew up on, but that the corridors also had straight back lines on the walls. It was a nice form of decoration, he thought, before reprimanding himself for thinking about insignificant details when he should be trying to come up with a escape plan. 

Scapolite stopped and turned towards one of the doors in a hallway after some minutes of walking. When they got close enough, the topazes also came to a halt, and Scapolite turned towards them, a grin still on her face.

"That's all. You can leave him to me now."

Again, Sean was dropped to the ground and got up. The two topazes bowed before turning back around and walking away, leaving Sean and Scapolite by themselves in front of the door. If she was going to report finding him, then that must be the room of a Commander or Administrator, so that they could discuss what to do with him. He was basically going to be analyzed and judged, and the thought made him sweat.

"This is the most exciting thing to happen to me since I arrived on this ship," Scapolite said, the emotions on her tone growing as she spoke more. "It's going to be great. Everything will be even better from now on."

Taking a deep breath, she put her hand on the detector on the wall by the door and grabbed its handle, pushing it forwards and walking in, before she signaled for Sean to follow. He reluctantly did, shivers going down his back. Just to get it over with already, he went inside, and found himself in a rather empty room, save for the desk in the middle and the chair behind it, where a morganite was sitting.

"My Commander," Scapolite started as she bowed, and Sean did the same. "I--"

"Hadn't I sent you in a mission? You were supposed to have departed already. So what are you doing, still here, bothering me?" the morganite interrupted her with an irked tone. 

"I did depart... bur soon after I left, I found something more valuable than anything my mission could offer. Look!" Scapolite gave Sean a push on the back, making him stagger forwards. The boy struggled to smile as he felt the morganite's glare stabbing him like a sword.

"A human?"

"Not a regular human!" Scapolite pulled him back, now reducing her voice to a whisper only the two of them could hear. "Show it to her. Your gem!"

Sean nodded vigorously. "R-right, my gem!" He lifted his shirt up to expose his gem again.

The same look Scapolite had when he first showed her his gem came into that morganite's eyes. She got up and walked over to where he was, crouching down to examine it better, and once again, Sean had to stay still and endure being handled like that.

Scapolite's grin was wider than ever now. "It's that hybrid! The one that ship 9Z5 produced!"

"A-actually, it wasn't the ship that... m-made me. It was--"

"Be quiet. Don't talk unless someone asks you something directly."

"It really seems like it's the hybrid." the morganite deduced, going back to sit on her chair again. "Well, if ship 9Z5 was careless enough to let it escape somehow and we managed to capture it back, it's ours, then. I'll notify the other Commanders and Administrators about its arrival and summon a few guards here to take it to the cell it'll be staying in. And then, after all of this has been taken care of... you and I can discuss something about a promotion, Scapolite."

"I'm glad to serve, my Commander." Scapolite said while bowing again. Her joy was practically overflowing out of her.

The morganite tapped a few buttons on her screen, and not so long after, a pair of amethyst guards entered the room. After bowing, they were quick to grab Sean by the arms and carried him outside through the corridors.

"U-um... n-nice ship you guys have got h-here..." he said with chuckles, trying to break the tension, but was ignored. "O-okay, uh... y-you don't have to talk if you don't w-want to..."

They took him to a corridor full of cells closed by those unbreakable colorful glass walls as doors. As he was taken furhter and further into it, Sean jerked his head to the sides to look at all the prisoners inside, as they waited for their turn to come and do the test to see if they would make it into the organization or not. What broke his heart about the situation was that out of all the many Gems he saw, few would actually pass and the rest would just be reduced to objects, energy sources to power engines and gadgets.

Finally, they stopped in front of one of the doors, one with green glass. One of the amethysts put her hand on the detector which caused the glass to retreat into the ceiling, and the other one threw Sean inside with so much force he hit the wall and slid down to the floor, with his head and back on the ground and his legs up. By the time he was back on his feet, the door was closed and the guards were gone.

Sean walked over to the glass and touched it. It wasn't like those destabilizing walls; if it were, it would be no problem for him to go through. But it was actual physical glass, and it was too resistant for him to even dream of shattering it. His fists couldn't, but maybe his rod could. He went back to the center of the room, sat down, and closed his eyes in an attempt of concentrating to try summoning the weapon. After the first time he did that, his training classes with Olive mostly revolved around trying to summon it again, and he had failed most of the time.

Emotions, that was what he needed. Strong emotions caused by a situation that left him no choice but to summon the rod. Sean was one to feel exaggeratedly, sure, but he was not one to feel redundantly; not in an apathetic way, but he wouldn't feel if there was nothing to feel for. He didn't know how to induce feelings into himself. Just the sheer desperation of wanting to get out of that place wasn't enough. Something else was needed. But he wasn't going to get that in there.

Hours passed and it was all so boring and lonely that Sean ended up falling asleep. He only realized that when he opened his eyes and noticed there was a pill and a cup of water on the floor next to the door, which meant time had passed and he had not been conscious to see it. Sean crawled over to where the objects were and took the small white pill on his palm, before placing it on his mouth and swallowing it alongside the water. After a few minutes the few hunger he had been feeling ceased.

"Um..." Sean said to the emptiness of the cubicle he was in. Just because the silence was starting to suffocate him. "Guess I'm really... stuck here..."

It was not just the lack of sound that was bothering him, but also the size of the place. It was so small he could probably run around it thousands of times before starting to get even a little tired, and that was probably the only thing he had to do, as it was so empty. Sean walked to the glass and pressed his face against it, trying to see anyone else in the cells. But there was nobody; he had been placed in a deserted area, purposely or not. So he really was all alone. With his thoughts.

Sean walked back to a wall and sat against it. He wondered if that's what Amazonite had felt during all the years she had spent trapped in that gadget; even if it hadn't been _his_ fault, he couldn't help but feel guilty about the whole situation, and now that he had an idea of how she felt, it was even worse. And as the years passed, not only that feeling, but everything else would be worse.

So there he stayed, staring up and waiting for something he knew wouldn't happen. His mind was as blank as the white ceiling of the room, when what sounded like footsteps woke him from his state. Someone was there, or was his mind just playing tricks with him, trying to fill the empty space? They seemed rushed too, like the person was running. Sean decided to stay where he was and wait to see what happened. There was always the possibility of somebody coming to see someone else, not him.

But then a figure appeared in front of the green-colored glass, and Sean gaped. There was just no way.

"Amazonite?!" he screamed, before squeezing his eyes shut and opening them again. She was still standing there, staring at him. "I was just... thinking about you! Oh no, am I having hallucinations?! I've only spent a few hours in here and I'm already going insane! Ah!" Sean turned to the side, his eyes shut and his hands holding the sides of his face.

"What? This is very real!" Amazonite replied, her tone seeming almost offended. "Come on, I came all the way here and put my gem on the line just to help you, and I don't accept no as an answer. Come here."

Sean looked at her and nodded. "Okay."

He walked over to the glass and put his palms against it, looking up so he could see her better.

"But... how did you get here? Weren't you in space? I helped you escape through that ship..." It was only then that he realized she was wearing a different outfit, though he couldn't exactly tell the colors through the glass. "What are those new clothes? H-hold on, are these the _Elementals'_ uniform?! Were you captured?! O-oh no, I have to find a way to help you--"

"No, I wasn't captured! It's fine. I actually invaded the ship." she said, with a sly smirk. Sean gasped. "This is just a disguise so they won't suspect of me."

"Ohhh, man... but just... how did you discover I was here? Y-you didn't have to risk y-yourself just to help me, I know how you feel about the E-Elementals... I appreciate it a lot, though."

"Ah, stop it... of course I had to. You helped me, after all, so it's only fair I'd help you if you were in the same situation. And about me discovering your whereabouts... there's no time for chatting right now. Let me get you out of here and we'll talk when we're all safe."

She then took out a card with a hand illustration over it and stared at it in confusion for a moment, before pressing it against the glass wall.

"Uh, actually, I... don't know what to do."

"U-um, what's that?"

"Apparently this card is supposed to ope these walls if the mechanism ever failed... that's what that Gem told me before I dissipated her form, at least."

Sean swallowed. "M-maybe you should... put it on the detector. That thingy next to the glass. On your right."

Amazonite's gaze met the detector and her eye widened in realization before she put the card on it and the glass door retreated fully into the roof, freeing Sean from his prison. He smiled back to her and embraced her into a hug, but she was far too puzzled to return it.

"Thank you so much, Amazonite! W-we have to find a way to escape now... is your ship here?"

"That's right, I put it with all the others on that room they have. Let's go."

The two ran along the corridor until they got to another one, where the main ship was. Looking at both sides, they realized it was empty and continued to their right, where they took a turn and continued running. Sean just followed Amazonite, as he hadn't memorized all the locations of that ship and she seemed to know. Everything was going smoothly, but when they were going to make another turn, they were surprised by a group of Gem soldiers making it before them and standing in front of them. Sean felt every drop of blood running inside his veins going cold at that moment as his lips instantly went up in a nervous smile.

"What's this? Why is a human roaming around the ship freely like this?" one of them asked.

Sean felt Amazonite staring at him in expectation, so he just spread his arms and screamed the first thing that came to his mind. "I-I escaped! From the H-Humans' Area!"

"Ah, yes, exactly! And I was taking him back!" Amazonite pulled his arms behind his back. "So, uh, let's go now, human."

"You escaped? Really?" another guard mused, looking suspicious of their story.

"Y-yeah! I just looove escaping the Humans' Area... I can't help myself, I'm always thinking about it, hahaha!"

"And you know, what he did doesn't matter... I'm already taking him back, anyway!" Amazonite added.

"Just be careful with it. If it starts talking about escaping with the other humans, who knows, they may even create their own rebellion."

To their relief, the guards walked past them, and Sean and Amazonite finally allowed their bodies to relax. They continued walking until they finally reached a double door and pushed it to get to the area with all the ships. But getting to Amazonite's ship would still not be an easy task, as they noticed a few guards standing by the ships. As soon as the saw the pair coming in, they summoned their weapons.

"Stay behind, Sean." Amazonite commanded with a bored, annoyed tone rather than a worried one.

"O-okay, but if you need h-help... just tell me!"

Amazonite gave him a small nod and took her sword out of her gem. Sean couldn't help but flinch at the sight of the curved blade, looking just as menacing as it had been two years ago, even if it wasn't meant for him this time. And then he watched as Amazonite fought with it effortlessly, swinging it around and dodging the other attacks. He had to close his eyes the first time she cut through a Gem's body with it, leaving a cloud a smoke and a gemstone on the floor. Soon, they were the only ones in the room, Sean being astonished.

"There. Let's go now that there are no more interruptions." Amazonite concluded as she started walking towards her ship.

Sean swallowed and ran on her direction. "Y-yeah, sure!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MY GURL IS FINALLY BACK HELL YEAH.   
> Next chapter will probably be the last one!


	12. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone is home.

The two spent the first minutes of the ride in complete silence. Probably trying to take in the mess that had just happened. The relief Sean was supposed to be feeling didn't kick in, canceled by the tension and shock still going through his mind, something that in return kept him from showing any emotion. His feelings were like a doorway cramped with people, unable to move. 

Only when he walked to the back of the ship and looked out through the window he was able to realize everything that had just happened. In the span of a few hours, maybe enough to make a full day, he had escaped from not one, but actually _two_ Elemental ships so he could go to Earth. Earth. _Earth_. The realization hit him like a crashing asteroid, and Sean dashed back towards the dashboard of the ship, where Amazonite was piloting it.

"A-ah, y-yeah, I forgot to tell you! W-we've got to go to Earth... I-I have the coordinates of the p-place."

She looked up at him and nodded, before clicking on the screen of the ship a few times before getting to a black white screen. "Put the coordinates in."

Sean couldn't be more glad that his instinct told him to memorize the coordinates of the place they were going when he was back at the ship with everyone. Everyone... his heart sunk trying to imagine their states. Marine would probably be the most external one with her emotions and start crying and screaming, while Olive would try to calm everyone down and reassure them they'd find a way. His father could be worrying in silence, still dazed by everything, all while the petalites would be panicking and blaming each other for what had happened.

Either way, they'd all be anguished in a way or other, and Sean would be the cause of it. To him, the worst thing that could happen was proportioning pain to someone, whoever it was, and if it ever happened, he wanted to make up for it. Even if he didn't redeem himself in their eyes, he'd still want to give them something to try repaying them for all the sorrow. The thought scared Sean, so whenever he did something he deemed as bad, as slight as it was, he made sure to instantly follow the action with a wave of apologies.

He was going to make it up to everyone when he got back. His father wouldn't need to work, Sean could do all the work by himself to earn them a place to live, and he could still introduce all the Gems to human culture; searching about it would also be one of the first things he'd do, of course. Juggling between working, studying, and teaching the Gems seemed almost impossible, but Sean was determined he was able to. After all, he had to.

"Hey, sooo..." Sean started, feeling more tranquil now that he was sure they'd be meeting his family soon. "...how did you discover I was there, anyway?"

"As you can imagine, the news of your, ahem, _capture_ , spread quickly. I was just invading one of the Elementals' bases in a planet so I could steal some fuel for my ship, when I heard them talking about it. It only took a single sight of my sword and some threats for them to tell me everything, including the location of the ship. Then I used a disguise and parked the ship, and nobody suspected of a thing."

"Oh, wow, that's awesome! It wasn't really hard for us to escape. We just got everyone together and went! I started a fire in the Humans' Area to help my Dad escape. It was a bit scary, but everything went alright, and that's all that matters." he said. "But, hey, it's great to see you again! It's been quite a while since the last time we saw each other!"

"Not too long, just two years... I thought it'd take much longer. But I see you got a new form since last time."

Sean looked down at himself, confused, when he realized. "O-oh, no, no, this isn't a 'new form'! Well, I guess it kinda is... but it isn't reforming like you Gems. As time passes, humans grow, and our body and voice changes because of it. Cool, right?"

Amazonite squinted at him. "...Are you really sure it's not something like... accidental shapeshifting?"

"Hmm... almost sure. Though it hurts sometimes. But I guess that's normal."

"Does it ever stop? This... body growth?"

"I... don't think so. Humans are supposed to grow as they live. They can die, but they never truly stop growing." Sean replied, gaze focused on the space behind a window. "But how about you? How have you been since, you know, I freed you?"

Sean froze when he realized what he had just said and was about to start spewing out apologies, but to his surprise, Amazonite didn't seem disturbed by him mentioning their rather traumatic first encounter. She just straightened her back against the seat and crossed one leg over the other, continuing to hold the "steering wheel" of the ship.

"I've been fine, I guess. Not really much has happened... I've just been exploring space. It gives me a... strange feeling. Knowing there's so much out there, and for the longest time I was trapped in such a small space... I like seeing everything, making up for all the lost time. But it disturbs me at the same time. I don't know if it's what I should be doing."

"Have you ever thought about finding a place to settle down?"

"Well, it's hard not to imagine it sometimes. But I don't know... no place actually feels right. And there's always the risk of the Elementals finding it." Amazonite let out a sigh that could have easily been mistaken as an annoyed one, but Sean noticed its sad undertones.

"That's it! You should come live on Earth with us!" 

"Hold on... what?!"

The corners of Sean's mouth pulled up in a bright smile. "Yeah! Earth is a good place. You can get to know all my family better! We can also try and help the Gems and humans from the other ships, so if the Elementals ever come, we can all protect out home! It's the best idea I've ever had!"

Doubt invaded Amazonite's expression. "Sean, listen. I thought a lot, and I'm sorry about what happened before and what I did. None of that was your fault, so you don't have to keep showing me sympathy or... pretending to. If you want, I can just drop you off at these coordinates and then you'll never have to see me again. You can just say it, I won't be offended."

"But I'm not pretending! I like you a lot... I consider you a friend. And if you want to stay with us, I can try to make you consider me one, too. You just have to give me a chance."

A few seconds passed, as Amazonite looked down, avoiding Sean's gaze. The boy waited patiently, shifting his gaze to somewhere else so she wouldn't feel pressed. The trip would still take some time, she could think about the proposal for as long as she wanted.

"Are you sure your, uh... _caregivers_ would approve of it?" she asked. "The last thing I want now is problems."

"Don't worry, it's okay. I can deal with everything... all you'd need to do is accept to stay with us, and you can leave all the rest to me!" Sean proudly pointed at himself with his thumb, a toothy grin adorning his face.

Amazonite didn't look too convinced, but just hung her hands up and closed her eye with a sigh. "Alright, you do whatever you think will work. But if they try to shatter me, I'm leaving."

"They won't try to shatter you! I think. They'd probably just be a little shocked and protective... Marine would be glad to see me, but then scared to see you. Olive would also be glad to see me, but she'd keep her happiness concealed and focus on protecting me. But I'd tell them that you're not trying to kill me anymore, and everything would be fine! I'm sure you'll all be friends in no time!"

"I seriously doubt it, but if you're so sure..."

Sensing the conversation was over for now, Sean walked away from where Amazonite was and started strolling along the ship. It wasn't large enough to have many rooms, just one door on the back that Sean assumed was the door where they could refuel the ship, that literal boiler room. Just thinking about it made the heat come back to Sean's skin and he let some drops of sweat escape. Just to make sure, he tiptoed towards the door and pulled its handle (Sean assumed Amazonite had found a way to make it open manually without the detector).

The two first things Sean felt were scalding smoke and regret. He let go of the door instantly, jumping and whimpering quietly while holding his burning hand; now he realized how stupid it had been of him to open a _metal_ door leading to a _boiling_ room. Metals were excellent thermal and electrical conductors, Marine had taught Sean when he was very young, but he let curiosity take the best of him and was dealing with the consequences first- _hand_ now.

"I burned myself!" Sean said, struggling to move his fingers properly without hurting himself further.

"You didn't need to go into that room... I already refueled the ship earlier, right before coming to save you."

"I-I'm really sorry, Amazonite... I won't do it again."

Amazonite furrowed her brow. "Why are you apologizing? You... didn't do anything wrong. It certainly wasn't _right_ , but it wasn't bad. And it didn't affect me negatively. So why did you say sorry?" 

Sean opened his mouth, but no sounds came out. The answer of the question was a mystery to him just as it was to her. They just stood there, staring at each other in silence, and would have stayed like that for all the remaining hours of the trip had Sean not decided to say any excuse.

"I-I, um, j-just didn't want to bother you. I-I mean, if something happened to me, there could be problems... Marine and Olive wouldn't be too happy, at least." he said.

"True." Amazonite replied, nodding sagely. "I wouldn't have to fight for nothing."

"Yeah, it'd be better if you guys didn't have to fight... it'd probably scare my Dad and the petalites a lot. Mainly Dad. I don't think he's ever seen an actual fight, at least not between Gems." Sean said as he blew on his hand to try and make it less hot. "Did humans ever fight in the Gem War? If they did, it must've been terrifying for them... humans are so different from Gems."

"And right now I'm going to a place filled with humans to the core." Amazonite sighed. "Can you at least tell me some basic things about human so I have an idea of what to expect?"

Sean gave her a smile. "Of course! So, the first thing you should probably know is that humans don't have gemstones on their bodies, differently from Gems."

Her face was filled with unexpected terror. "Does that mean they're invincible?"

"What? Oh, no, no! Actually... okay, think of them as actually having a gem everywhere on their bodies. If you hit any place too hard, you can severely hurt them. Humans are fragile. They're basically made of organs and bones covered by flesh covered by skin..." He could notice Amazonite's confusion the more he spoke. "I-I guess that does sound weird without context..."

"Hold on. I'll set this to autopilot so I can focus only on you. It won't be a problem, since we have lots of fuel last."

Sean agreed and Amazonite pressed a few buttons on the dashboard, before getting up from the captain's seat and approaching him. Both of them sat on the ground in front of each other, and even though she was slightly hunched forwards, she still towered over Sean with his back straight.

"So! Um, bones are like these... sticks inside human bodies. They do lots of things, like supporting the body, protecting organs, and making our movements easier! They're tough, but they can still be broken, and I heard it's painful. Look." Sean extended his arm and hit it with his hand; Amazonite did the same. "Those are the bones of my arms! I also have them on my legs, chest, and head!"

"Interesting..."

"Next up, flesh! That's the easiest one. It's like this meat we're covered in! They protect everything that's inside of us from damage! Our bodies are... fleshy. _I'm fleshy_!" Sean laughed, rubbing and pulling his skin to show it to Amazonite. "Skin is what covers the flesh, to protect it too. Marine calls it the superficial epidermic layer, but I just call it skin."

"You humans really do need a lot of protection, huh..."

"And then, last but definitely not least, organs! They're inside our bodies, except the skin. They have many functions that keep us alive. For example, we need oxygen to breathe and survive, and it's all in our blood... the function of the heart is to pump all the blood around. You can feel my heart here." Sean took Amazonite's hand and put it against the left side of his chest, watching as her eye widened in surprise feeling its beats. "Cool, right? There's also the brain, which is in our heads and controls our movements... there are the lungs, that help us breathe in air... there are the stomach, intestines, and pancreas, which all help with digesting the food we eat, and much more!"

"Wow, humans are complex... I didn't expect this. I don't know what to say... do I have to know all this?" Amazonite asked.

"Not really, this is just what happens inside! These things don't really matter day-to-day, usually. What matters the most is what we actually do, and I thought you'd understand it better if you understood what's behind it first." Sean explained. "Basically, what we need to do is just eat, drink water, sleep and then, well..." A faint blush appeared on his cheeks as he looked down awkwardly. "...go to the bathroom."

"What's the bathroom? And why do you have to go there?"

Sean's blush got stronger and he started sweating. "The b-bathroom is, um... l-like... okay, so you know the food I mentioned earlier? Well, it has to... g-get out some way... r-right?"

"Right. How?"

"Y-you see, we... uh, there's this thing that's basically..." Sean's eyes darted all across the ship in desperation before setting on the captain's chair. "H-hey, I have an idea! H-how about you teach me how to d-drive the ship?"

"Sure, I guess..."

The two got up, with Sean clearly being more excited than Amazonite was, and overall more nervous. He sat down on the captain's chair and allowed himself to relax, now that the embarrassing topic wasn't relevant anymore, and instead, the many buttons all over the dashboard. In front of him was the steering wheel, with the shape of a fork-like structure but with two points.

"Okay, what do I have to do to drive?" he asked.

"First, let me turn off autopilot. If you try to drive with it on, you'll end up making the motors explode." Amazonite said, before pressing a few buttons so quickly Sean only blinked two times during it. The ship began to slow down. "Alright. Do you see those two buttons next to your feet?"

Sean looked down and noticed both of them, aligned. "Yeah!"

"Press the right one to accelerate, and the left one to slow down. Just keep your foot over the right one, but don't press it too hard. You can use the steering wheel to move the direction of the ship. Look down at the screen on your right to see the route."

"O-okay, doesn't seem hard at all! I think I can do this!"

In the end, they had to put it on autopilot again after Sean panicked when a asteroid appeared in front of them, and instead of moving the steering wheel, pressed the accelerating button to the end. More hours passed, mostly filled with Sean's mind alternating from boredom of being in space and the excitement to see everyone again. His emotions settled for the last option when Amazonite called him to see Earth on the windows right in front of them.

It was one of the most beautiful sights he had ever seen. The majority of it was blue, one which was darker than his gem, and the other was of a green similar to his eyes; there was also white spread all over it, clouds, as Sean had been taught before. He was able to see more of Earth's atmosphere as they got closer, and then there were grass and trees all around him before they felt the ship landing.

"We're here! We're on Earth!" Sean screamed while laughing. He then saw a familiar sight. "Oh, look! It's the escape pod from I was in with everyone before! They're here too! I need to see them!"

Sean sprinted out of the ship in the direction of the pod, and jumped towards its front.

"Guys, I'm back!" he shouted, relief washing over him as he saw all their shocked faces turned to him. He landed right on Olive's arms.

"Oh, Sean!" Marine cried out in tears when she recovered from the initial surprise, immediately wrapping her arms against him.

"Wow, I seriously... didn't expect you to come back _this fast_!" Olive laughed.

"Neither did I... but after everything that's happened, I don't doubt anything. I'm just glad." said Finn, coming to hug his son as well.

"But... you were at the Elementals' ship! It should be impossible for you to come back! What happened?" Pad asked.

"Well... Amazonite happened!" Sean turned to point at Amazonite, who was standing awkwardly a little far from them. Marine gasped and Sean felt Olive was about to put him down and get her sword. "No, no, wait! She helped me! If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be here with you guys right now! She's my friend!"

"Uh... hi." Amazonite lifted her hand in a static wave. Marine and Olive still didn't seem fully convinced, so she turned to Finn. "You must be My Dad. Sean told me about you."

Finn glanced at Sean, who chuckled. "Uh... I guess I am? But my name is actually Finn."

Amazonite didn't look like she understood, but nodded anyway.

"What matters right now... is that we're on Earth!" Sean said, spreading his arms to point at everything around them. "Finally... and that means we're free to live as happily as we want!"

Sean had a feeling that, now, everything would be perfect.

Because he was finally home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yesss!!! This is finally finished, I'm glad. Now I'll take a longer time to prepare everything for the next story, which will be longer than the rest :) The start will mostly be slice-of-life chapters (that are still extremely important for character introductions and development, plot points, and foreshadowing), but then more serious plot stuff will come.


End file.
